RT Edgar's Sarah Case: The real estate agent who was in Australia's first female bobsledding team

Sarah Case isn’t afraid of being noticed. Dressed in her signature gold and white, with colourful jackets and shoes, the RT Edgar director (based in the Toorak office) shows you don’t need a power suit to reach the top. A member of Australia’s first female bobsledding team, Case swapped the adrenaline of the ice for that of real estate more than 20 years ago. She lives in Malvern with her husband Ben and son Tex.

How did your interest in bobsleighing come about?

I wasn’t raised in a snow family – I grew up in a small country in the western district called Camperdown, which is six hours’ drive from Mount Buller, but I went to boarding school in Geelong and a friend’s mum took me and I was hooked. After school I taught snowboarding in Whistler in Canada for two seasons and in New Zealand in the off-season. A male friend called me just after the first female bobsledders were allowed in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, back in 2002. He’d been asked if he knew any crazy girls who’d consider it. He said he knew one crazy girl.

And how did Australia’s first female team fare?

In Australia we never trained on snow. We used to train under the Bolte Bridge, pulling a sled on tram tracks. When my teammate and I did it properly on ice for the first time, at bobsleigh school in Austria, we crashed at 100km/h. You’re wearing spikes so you can run 20 to 30 metres over ice before you jump in. You lose skin. But we competed and we did well. It is a pretty crazy sport and getting up to 145km/h with all the g-forces is an incredible adrenaline rush.

Adrenaline seems to be a big thing for you …

Absolutely. I also love cars, which is a bit of a real estate agent cliche. My first car was a Holden Commodore ute. I used to love going to B&S balls and doing circle work and sleeping in swags. That’s just what you did in the country and it was so much fun.

From bobsleighing to real estate, how did that come about?

Bobsleighing is expensive and there’s no funding from the government. I was at a dinner party one night and someone said, “You’d be really good at real estate.” The next thing I knew, I had my first job at Mirvac.

What do you love about it?

I love the chase in real estate. You have to work hard to list the property but then you have to work extra hard to sell it. My negotiation prowess is a real strength. People tend to underestimate me because I’m female … but they shouldn’t.

You live in Malvern; what attracted you to the area?

I grew up in a small community where the kids could play together outside and I’ve found the same thing in Malvern. Out of 31 houses on our street, 26 have children in them. We regularly visit neighbours, often with a bottle of wine in hand. We were planning to build and resell, but we’ll never move now.

You work six days a week. How do you relax in your precious downtime?

My family is everything. We have a beach house at Peterborough on the Great Ocean Road and that’s my happy place. I’m an only child and I still go on holidays with my parents as we don’t get to see each other much during the year. I believe a family that plays together stays together, as we always have so much fun. And my husband Ben and I love trying new restaurants. Our favourite is the Bouzy Rouge (above) in Richmond.