We sat down with John Morris, Chief Auctioneer of Ray White South Australia about the challenges that he has had to overcome in his role since the pandemic, and why he is putting more properties under the hammer than ever before.
Give us a brief rundown on what your usual week looks like as the SA chief auctioneer:
Every workday starts with a catch up with the whole corporate team. On Monday/Tuesday, I generally catch up on admin; reporting auction results, invoicing, making calls to upcoming vendors and checking through upcoming auctions.
On Wednesday/Thursday is auction preparation; preparing and attending vendor meetings, contacting local councils, general research for upcoming auctions and bidder calls. I also hold a weekly online bidder training session for bidders/potential bidders to go through scenarios, answer any questions and allay any fears/nerves they have about the auction process. Friday is more auction prep, vendor meetings, agent meetings.
Saturday is game day which is busier at the moment than it has ever been for me, so much so that it is often spilling over into Sundays. I’m currently calling 8-10 auctions per weekend with several more in the week (in-room and online).
What are some proactive steps you have had to take as an auctioneer through the pandemic?
The day after the restrictions were announced, I had a meeting with Ray White Norwood as we had a big weekend coming up, which we were now going to be forced to cancel as we were not online ready.
We pulled all of the auctions from the weekend forward to that day, holding one every hour until 9pm that night and sold every single one of them - a phenomenal effort by an incredibly talented and dedicated team.
After that, and along with the rest of the corporate auctioneers across the country, we in SA pushed through full steam ahead with ensuring that an online buying and selling experience was the best it could possibly be.
We quickly evolved from a phone and a tripod into a full-on, completely digital experience; three laptops, dedicated HD camera, screens, green screens plus other systems that I have no idea about - without Daniel Gray (our Digital BDE), I would still be using an iPhone.
We now have 2 x set ups; one at the corporate office where we can call auctions any time of the day or night, and one which packs up into a couple of cases which we can take along to offices.
What changes have you noticed during the auction itself (bidding, attendance, etc) over the last couple of months?
I was amazed at the ease with which everybody accepted the online process.I suppose more people are comfortable with Zoom (which is what I use), Google Hangouts and the like, so this is just an extension of that.
At first we found that bidders were more reluctant to open the bidding and we definitely had to coax the bids out of them much more than in the more traditional methods. This is why I started doing online bidder training sessions and contacting the bidders personally - something I’d never done as an auctioneer before but will now continue as the outcome was so positive, with our bidder registrations actually increasing throughout the lockdown.
Do you have an auction story from the thick of the COVID-19 period that stands out?
I have two stand-outs:
We sold two properties in one night with Ray White Tea Tree Gully at their office; Dan Gray and I were at the corporate office and all the bidders, vendors and onlookers were watching from their homes. I found that quite a surreal moment being together in a room with over 40 people and interacting with them all, while in reality it was just me and Dan. We also shared a couple of beers over Zoom with Sam Doman and his team after that event!
The other one that stands out was with Stefan Siciliano from Ray White Norwood. The owner was trying to pull the auction, and we had to do everything to try to keep them right up until the day of auction. By the time the auction started, we had 19 registered bidders and another two who registered during. 11/21 battled it out (all via the chat function rather than speaking) with the bidding starting at $700,000, sailing past the $860,000 reserve and selling, after 43 bids, for $991,000.
What is your outlook on the auction outlook for SA over the next couple of months?
There are a lot of auctioneers in our state talking doom and gloom, but I have never been busier. This is probably a mixture of not slowing down through the lockdown and actively helping agents to get through it, along with agents realising the importance of offering auction as a method of sale; the only option of obtaining an unconditional contract to their clients in an uncertain time.
Ray White has been relentless in their message about this throughout which helped immeasurably. While volume of auctions were certainly down during the restrictions, every other metric was up; clearance rates, average registered bidders, active bidders and there were also fewer auctions with no bidding than at any time earlier in the year.
In the time since restrictions were lifted, Ray White has continued to dominate the SA real estate market, often holding above 50% of the auction market share throughout the state while continuing to increase clearance rates and bidder registrations.
Why is it more important than ever for sellers to choose auction as their method of sale?
I have always believed in the auction process, so much so that every property I’ve ever bought or sold since I have lived in SA has been through the auction process.
As I said before, in those uncertain times the auction method was your only assurance of certainty through an unconditional contract. Even now, I hear stories of 30% of finance contracts failing - a contract with a finance clause is binding only on the seller until the finance is satisfied.
An auction contract is equally binding on both parties therefore giving peace of mind to both the seller and purchaser without the risk of having to come back on the market 4-6 weeks later.
If it doesn’t sell on the day, you are only three weeks into your campaign and you’ve met a lot more buyers, had a lot more conversations and received a lot more feedback throughout your campaign.
