Matt Johnson – from working student to leading Wellington Realtor
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The Village of Wellington, home to the Winter Equestrian Festival, is a realtor’s heaven and no one knows that better than Matt Johnson.
Matt started out as a working student for various Grand Prix and Olympic dressage riders, but not coming from money or a horsey family he quickly realized he would need to make some serious money if he wanted to ride so he acquired a real estate license in 1997.
By 2014 Matt’s real estate endeavours had paid off enough for him to travel to Denmark to purchase a four-year-old stallion from Helgstrand, Qasanova, who Matt has since brought up to grand prix level and became the namesake for his realty company, Qasanova Luxury.
“It was a natural progression,” said Matt, who works in his role as realtor, while also riding and competing at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival. “I was able to tap into the network that I had and built on that over time. I would say 98% of my clients are connected to the horse industry.”
Wellington land prices have continued to rise over the years and more so since the pandemic.
“It started maybe six months into Covid,” said Matt of a property boom that has seen property prices close to double in some cases. “I thought when Covid happened it was over – I was going to have to get a new job, but it went the total opposite. It started to really take off.” he said.
The market has levelled out recently but Wellington continues to grow and evolve with new investment in the showgrounds at Wellington International, a new polo club just south of the city – the PLYRS Club – and change of use for older polo properties.
Matt has the listing for Pony Express – a polo facility first established in the 1990s. “Some polo fields have been bought for use as Hunter/Jumper and Dressage facilities,” Matt said. “It is not that polo real estate does not exist in Wellington, but the growth in the other equestrian disciplines in the last decade, has seen demand for those properties increase. There is a finite amount of land in close proximity to Wellington International – so a property such as Pony Express is highly desirable, with the amount of acreage that comes in such a prime location.”