Just try and stop Andrew Harding: he’s on a roll in the Top End

As owner of Ray White Darwin and Palmerston, he guides clients through high-value real estate decisions with confidence, clarity, and genuine care but his path into the industry started a long way from a boardroom.

Andrew grew up in Tasmania and, after finishing school, went straight into a carpentry apprenticeship. In 2010 he moved to Moranbah, the Queensland mining company town,  where the work was relentless: seven days a week, building a trade from the ground up.

When his apprenticeship finished, he pointed the car north and drove for Darwin, chasing family ties: his parents had settled there with his younger sister, and his brother had been posted to Darwin with the Navy. He arrived planning to keep drifting west. Instead, life intervened, he broke both wrists, an injury serious enough to end his carpentry career before it properly began.

Back on his feet, Andrew tried his hand at sales, landing in a car yard at 23 in 2017.

It was there, working the floor, that he first clocked real estate as a genuine long-term career,  a way to turn a talent for talking to people, and a stubborn commitment to honesty, into something bigger. His boss in the car game taught him a lesson he still leans on: you win by being likeable and never fake - works on a building site, at the pub, or in a boardroom - just be yourself.

Real estate, he found early on, oversold the dream and underplayed the slog, the hours, the rejection, the grind before the wins.

"You get out what you put in" became the operating principle.

Andrew started his real estate career at a local boutique agency in October 2017 into a tough market. His lead agent took him under his wing, and within 18 months Andrew had a team of his own.

His first hire was Evie Radonich, the first of what would become a growing team, all built on a principle he still repeats today: overcommunication is the secret to success.

It was during his early days in real estate that Andrew crossed paths with Ray White SA/NT CEO Matt Lindblom.

In November 2021, Matt rang with an opportunity: did Andrew want to open Ray White Darwin? Andrew and his wife, Leanne Scott-Toms, sat down with Matt over coffee, and the timing, and the opportunity to build something of his own, was too good to pass up.

Ray White Darwin opened in May 2022. A second franchise, Ray White Palmerston, followed as the business grew and he has just opened in a magnificent newly renovated building in Parap.

Ray White managing director Dan White, who was in Darwin, for the new office opening complimented Andrew on the way he has grown his business and his team.

Andrew started his business as a two-person operation, and it’s now a 24-strong team with a huge new office with a lot of available seats for growth.

“What Andrew's built in Darwin in under three years is exactly the kind of performance we love to see and support. He's taken market share from 3 per cent to 18 per cent through hard work and genuine care for his clients, that's not luck, that's great leadership and a great culture.”