About
Our First Client
Lex Perry was Secret Agent’s first client. In March 2008, a few months before the global financial crisis, he wrote from New Zealand looking for help acquiring a property in Melbourne. He has since settled in Vancouver with his family. This conversation took place on 24 June 2026, eighteen years after Lex became a client of the firm. He is the nucleus of Secret Agent.
Paul
Where do you live in Vancouver?
Lex
I live in a place called Kitts Point — Kitts is short for Kitsilano, which is an inner-city beach suburb. It’s not quite downtown, but it’s a walk over the bridge. I walk into the office, about thirty minutes. I’m in a townhouse — two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two blocks from the beach. We moved there about three years ago. It’s a quiet neighbourhood, one of the nicest in the city. It’s an older complex, built around 1980, with vaulted ceilings. In summer you can open the French doors front and back and get a sea breeze from over the beach. A lovely spot.
Paul
I wrote to you a few weeks ago after going through the history of the business. You get to a point where you start to reflect on where things have come from. I was going back through the records and your name came up, of course — an email on the 19th of March 2008, 10:47 in the morning. I was very pleased to have you come on board at that time, because you’re never quite sure when you start something whether it’s going to work. Can you tell me what you were doing in 2008, and how you came across the business?
Lex
I had just taken a new job in New Zealand with Colliers — I’d been with Colliers in Australia, but moved across for a new role. I had equity in a property I’d sold after a separation, and I was keen to keep investing for the future. I liked Melbourne, and I was also thinking about where I’d live if I moved back. That gave me a useful set of criteria for an investment property: if it was somewhere I’d be happy to live, in an area that would appeal to people like me, that seemed like a sound basis. I needed help with the search because I was in New Zealand and wasn’t going to be on the ground in Melbourne.
I didn’t know I was your first customer, but I knew I was early — I knew you’d just started, and you were very transparent about that — full disclosure, from the outset. Getting the concept of buyer’s representation established in Australia was genuinely new at the time; it wasn’t a common thing. You must have been ahead of your time on search optimisation, because I found Secret Agent through a Google search. The inquiry was simple, you were very responsive — which is always a good sign — and from the outset it felt comfortable.
You had a plan, an approach, a thesis about the market and where it was headed. I liked inner-city Melbourne as an investment thesis. I didn’t have a great deal of equity, so we were starting small — but I thought, let’s see if we can make it work. What was so helpful was that you were able to look at properties that I couldn’t look at. I bought the place we eventually settled on without ever seeing it in person. There were a couple of other properties we bid on that got away, but they were probably right to walk away from.
You found a place in East Brunswick — good location, easy access into the city, a vibrant area, a sound entry-level spot. And there was something I remember clearly, and was genuinely appreciative of. When we had a candidate property, you knocked on the doors of the neighbours and asked them what they thought of the area, what they knew about the building. You get these small but valuable insights that way. It’s a simple thing that a lot of people overlook, but just knowing you went to that effort gave me great confidence — in the complex, the neighbourhood, the property itself. That stuck with me.
Paul
2008 was a remarkable time. Everything seemed possible. It was before social media had taken hold — the internet felt like it was opening things up rather than fragmenting them. And then of course the global financial crisis broke out with the Lehman collapse in September. A year of many twists and turns. I just remember that we had great fun doing this work. I’m enormously grateful for you taking a chance on us at the start, because everything flows from that first relationship.
Lex
It was fun. Seeing the property for the first time in person was a good moment.
It was a good experience — which is why, when my mother was looking to do something, I suggested she reach out to you.
It’s interesting how the market cycles. We bought just before the financial crisis, which turned out not to matter — it was never a concern. Then Covid arrived. We decided to sell the Melbourne property, but then no one could do inspections. We’d list it, then another lockdown would come. The sale wasn’t handled by you, but you referred me to someone well equipped to deal with it, and we got an extraordinary result. In the span of the twelve years or so we’d held it, the property had more than doubled in value. The online auction was actually enjoyable — I could participate from Vancouver and watch it unfold. It sold at the absolute peak.
Paul
I think you sold it in 2021 — is that right?
Lex
There were still lockdowns — we’d finally listed when inspections were allowed, and then two or three weeks in another lockdown came, so the auction had to move online. There had been strong interest by that point. It went well above what I thought we’d get.
And it worked beautifully. That capital appreciation over the twelve years or so enabled me to get into the place we’re in now in Kitsilano — otherwise we just wouldn’t have been able to. We’d still be in a small apartment in a tough neighbourhood. So yes, it made a real difference — getting into property early, holding it, letting it compound. I look back and think, when you’re younger and maybe a bit sillier, it’s such a sound thing to do. Property isn’t liquid. You just leave it there for the long term. It holds your discipline for you.
Paul
And when did you leave New Zealand for Vancouver?
Lex
2009. I came over thinking I’d get a couple of ski seasons in and then go home. That didn’t quite work out that way.
Paul
You’ve built a life there. A Canadian partner, a son who plays hockey and cricket. Do you see yourself coming back at some point?
Lex
I could see us bringing the family home. When you’re thirty and on your own, buying a plane ticket and taking an opportunity somewhere else is a straightforward decision. The older you get, the more you’re carrying. Tricia would move to Australia without hesitation — she loves it there. But she has family here too, and Scotty is laying down roots. The longer you go, the bigger those questions get.
Paul
Thank you, Lex, for taking part in this conversation. You are an important chapter in not just my firm’s history, but mine.