How a medical doctor became a property entrepreneur and built three businesses

Walton Chu began his working life as a medical doctor in the Nanjing city of China.

Arriving in Australia in 2004, he studied international public health at The University of Sydney and became fascinated by the character and historical architecture of the local Chippendale area.

Today, Walton is the CEO of an innovative proptech startup he founded in 2020 called TEAMLINK as well as public company HOME789 which he started in 2008 (when it was called Great Fortune Investment). In 2015, he also founded UFN, a specialist property development, investment and funds management company that today has 6 projects across Sydney with a track record of delivering high quality property projects.

How did Walton pivot careers and embrace the great Australian love affair with property?

Caring about people and finding a passion for property

“In late 2007, I switched gears professionally and immersed myself in the world of finance, property investment and asset management,” says Walton. “Initially, I really wanted to get a broad base of knowledge about real estate, and learn the key trends in the market.”

Those trends included changes in planning regulations to make it easier to build high rise apartments, the unrelenting increase in Sydney’s median house prices making apartments relatively more affordable, strong immigration and the growing investment interest of overseas buyers in the Australian residential market, especially Asian investors.

“I saw that apartment living was going to boom,” he says. “So I capitalised on that market opportunity by building close relationships with developers and positioning my first business – HOME789 – as a specialist in project marketing to sell new apartments to a specialty local and foreign client base.”

It proved to be a winning strategy. Several years later HOME789 listed on the National Stock Exchange in 2019. It was a proud moment for Walton and his team.

“At that time the apartment market was recalibrating because lots of people chased a quick buck to make easy money in a hot market,” Walton recounts. “But selling off-the-plan to interstate and foreign buyers requires a lot of transparency and trust or else you can end up with problems like contract defaults. You have to demonstrate consistently high standards to earn that trust. You have to care about people, not just profits.”

Learning the real estate business and embracing the digital age

Walton describes his specialist areas within property as including project marketing, sales strategy, property development, business strategy, acquisition, and asset management.

According to Walton, technology and digital transformation can change the way people live and work by providing innovative technical solutions to many of the real estate industry’s challenges and pain points.

“I love how technology can be used for good, for example, to help with ESG and sustainability. I’m an advocate for technology and sustainability in new build projects, for example, keyless door entry and solar panels,” says Walton.

Moreover, this is a global opportunity and technical solutions that have been applied successfully in other industries (outside real estate) can be leveraged to bring more efficiency, productivity and sustainability into the property industry.

“My mission is to provide world-class real estate services to clients all over the world, embracing the highest standards of expertise, professionalism and integrity. I’m a big believer in research and data … and technology,” Walton declares.

Scaling proptech solutions for success

For this well-established property entrepreneur, his future focus will be on scaling proptech solutions for success.

“We founded TEAMLINK to connect everyone together digitally in real-time: developers, agency-owners, agents and buyers. It really streamlines the end-to-end process for everyone and removes a lot of frictions and frustrations. It’s just one way that proptech can help property developers to maximise sales,” he says.

“Through TEAMLINK, my vision is to connect everyone in the real estate ecosystem in real-time, in one platform that works anywhere, anytime, and on any device.”