How Danny Fox closed the “impossible deal” with Realtair

• Key figure: Danny Fox, Partner at Fox and Wood Real Estate in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, with 23 years total real estate experience, including ground-up progression from 17-year-old newcomer to business owner 
• Challenge: Eliminating time-consuming manual processes and weekend drives for signatures while building a new agency focused on work-life balance rather than burnout culture 
• Solution: Comprehensive implementation of Realtair’s integrated platform over five years, progressing from basic contract signing to full proposal and auction management 
• Key achievement: Transformed from spending evenings driving to clients’ homes at 8pm to closing complex three-country deals from bed at 10 pm, while building a business that sells 100-120 properties annually with just three agents

It was 10 pm on a weeknight when Danny Fox’s phone buzzed with a notification that would have been impossible just a few years ago. James, one of two brothers selling their father’s property, had just signed the contract from his hotel room in Canada. The exchange was complete. 

Danny Fox, partner at Fox & Wood in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, was about to head to bed when the alert came through Realtair. After a day of coordinating between two time zones and managing what should have been a logistical nightmare, the deal was finally done. 

The property sale had begun that morning with a verbal agreement reached around 10 am Sydney time. By then, it was already night-time in Canada, where James was travelling. His brother Peter was in northern NSW, managing the sale of their father’s home after he’d moved into aged care. The purchasers were local to the Shire. (Client names have been changed for privacy.)

“I had my last conversation with James before he was going to bed,” Danny recalls. “Then I picked up communications with Peter, who was in northern NSW, got the contract signed by the purchasers electronically, got the contract signed by Peter. And then at 10 pm last night, I was about to go to bed, get a notification that James’s opened the contract. He signed it. Big exchange, it’s done.”

Why this deal was “impossible”

The traditional paper contract process would have turned this into a weeks-long ordeal. The client James would have needed to find printing facilities in his Canadian hotel, sign physical documents, scan them, and email them back to Australia. Any missing signatures or errors would have meant restarting the entire cycle.

International courier services would have been the alternative, adding days or weeks to the process while documents made their way across continents. The cooling-off period would have stretched even longer, creating uncertainty for all parties about whether the deal would actually complete.

“So some logistical challenges if you’re trying to do paper contracts that way,” Danny explains. 

For the purchasers, the delay would have meant uncertainty about whether their offer was secure. James’s brother, Peter, would have been managing an increasingly complex coordination exercise from NSW, trying to track documents across multiple time zones while keeping everyone informed about progress.

The emotional toll on the family would have been significant, too. With their father in aged care and the need to finalise his property sale, the last thing the brothers needed was a drawn-out administrative process that could easily go wrong. 

Danny had experienced these frustrations firsthand throughout his career. The weekend drives, the late-night signature chases, the constant worry about documents getting lost in the post. The sinking feeling when deals fell apart during extended cooling-off periods, often not because of the price or terms, but simply because the logistics became too complicated. 

The Realtair platform handled all the technical coordination. James could review and sign the contract from his hotel room in Canada. The signed document was immediately available to all parties, with automatic notifications confirming completion. The entire process, from verbal agreement to executed contracts, had taken place in a single day across three locations and two continents.

Out with the old, in with the new

Danny’s 23-year real estate career spans the transformation from analogue to digital. When he started at 17, the company owner would take his own camera on property inspections and snap “a couple of photos.” There were no professional photography services, no virtual tours, and certainly no electronic contracts. 

“Kind of blows my mind that the attention to detail back then was virtually nil. We’re now like, everything’s got to be perfect,” he reflects. 

Danny now sees vendors spend $8,000 to $10,000 on marketing campaigns. But it wasn’t just the marketing that has evolved – the entire contract process remained stuck in the paper age until recently.

Five years ago, when Danny and his business partner Jed Wood started Fox & Wood, they were still operating entirely on traditional methods. Getting a listing meant putting on a suit and driving to the owner’s house at 8 pm to get agency agreements signed. The same ritual applied to buyers. 

When buyers pulled out during cooling-off periods, the wasted effort was particularly galling. “You’re like, what the hell did I do that for now?” Danny says. 

The weekend workload was relentless. “You know, I’d previously been doing paper contracts, paper agency agreements,” he explains. 

When Realtair was introduced through their network, Agents’ Agency, Danny’s adoption was gradual but transformative. “So, yeah, being able to do everything electronically has been a game-changer for us,” he says.

The broader transformation 

Danny’s experience with Realtair extends far beyond the single complex transaction. The platform has fundamentally changed how Fox & Wood operates as a business, affecting everything from daily workflows to work-life balance. 

The time savings have been transformative. “It just freed up so much more time for either business or life,” Danny explains. Where he once spent evenings driving around getting signatures, he can now complete transactions remotely while maintaining family commitments.

“So as an example, like, drop my son at school, being able to go and grab a coffee with my wife after that. Then go to a meeting, be out of the office by 3:30 this afternoon. Still be contactable if somebody needs me.” 

The flexibility extends to how he works. “My office is essentially my car. So you know, I can work from anywhere,” he says. This mobility means he’s not tied to traditional office hours while still maintaining professional service levels. 

Client feedback has been consistently positive. “The ones that have been through I guess a recent selling process with a different agent in a different market will usually give us the feedback that we’ve been able to make it easy for them,” Danny notes. 

The platform’s tracking features provide valuable intelligence about client engagement. “And I also feel like if I send a prelist to somebody and I’m notified that they’ve opened it 15 times before I get there, I know that they’re probably a hot prospect rather than somebody that doesn’t open it,” he explains. 

This insight helps him prioritise his time and approach. When prospects repeatedly engage with proposals, it signals genuine interest. When they don’t, it saves him from pursuing lukewarm leads. 

The compliance benefits have also been significant. “Everything has been done from a compliance perspective is, is definitely beneficial rather than, you know, you’re missing identity documents or, you know, all of those sorts of things. They’re kind of covered,” Danny says. 

For his agent Shane Flanagan, the transformation has been equally valuable. “Like he can literally be there cooking dinner and getting a contract signed at the same time,” Danny observes, highlighting how the platform enables true work-life integration rather than just balance.

A resounding success 

Looking back on his five-year journey with Realtair, Danny is unequivocal about its impact on his business. “I don’t know if we’d be at the same point now if we hadn’t have implemented it back then,” he reflects. 

The transformation has been so complete that returning to paper contracts now seems foreign. “It seems so foreign to me that I used to have to print a paper contract. And I probably might have done one or two since we’ve started the business.” 

When asked what he’d tell other agents considering Realtair, Danny’s advice is straightforward: “I’d definitely implement again if I was in the same spot five years ago as I am today.” 

For Danny and Jed, starting their own agency was partly about escaping the burnout culture of larger firms. “We’d both been through burnout, working through a larger agency, you know, dog eat dog kind of grind of just working around the clock and never having any downtime.” 

Realtair became an essential tool in achieving their goal of offering “premium service but maintain a lifestyle.” The platform’s capabilities align with their business philosophy that these “two things inadvertently kind of help one another.” 

Five years later, the decision to embrace Realtair has proven to be transformational for both his business success and personal wellbeing. 

“It’s really for me, it feels like lifestyle. It makes everything easier,” he concludes.