SA mid-north clearing sale attracts widespread interest

RAY White Rural SA keeps going from strength to strength, showing that despite the dry and the global health pandemic, records are still being broken.

Daniel Schell, joint principal of Ray White Rural SA together with his father and business partner Geoff Schell, have just inked a huge property sale to finalise the estate of Keith Honan for in excess of $9 million. The pair then conducted an extensive online clearing sale.

The rural property which comprised 16,5813ha (4097 acres) sold over five lots to four different buyers in South Australia and was signed up as an auction sale just prior to the COVID restrictions and then changed to an EOI.

“We had a huge response to the property during the six week marketing campaign with more than 80 inquiries, 30 inspections and 20+ EOIs received which resulted in record sale prices,” Mr Schell said.

Not long after the Schells ran their first online clearing sale for the Honan Estate with fantastic success across 179 lots.

Some 480 bidders registered for the online auction, some from as far away as Spain who bid on these dusty ‘vintage’ bikes which ended up selling to a local buyer for $85.

“We had more than 300 people online during the virtual auction, anyone could tune in to listen or participate in the auction by placing bids right up until the last second. There were reserves on only three main lots but these had been well exceeded prior to the live auction starting," Mr Schell said.

“The online auction was an overwhelming success providing far greater access to buyers to be involved in the sale. We opened bidding up over three days and without having to travel to the property if they were happy not to inspect the items,” Mr Schell said.

“We even had a person bidding from Spain on Lot 120 which was two vintage bicycles. A number of the key items were sold to interstate buyers. The wooden cart sold for $13,500.

“We think the success of the clearing sale has also strongly contributed to there being no other clearing sales over the past four months and therefore no competition.

“We can see the future for clearing sales as a combination of both on-site and online. Many people still like to attend a sale to see and touch the items and listen to an engine start.

“But holding an online sale reached a wider audience and provided the buyers an opportunity to review and place bids over a couple of days.

“We stayed in the office until the wee hours of the morning sending invoices to all successful purchasers with payment instructions.”

Collection day was two days after the action and everyone picked up and paid for their lots.

The Schells worked closely with a local business, Farm Clearing Sales, to provide an alternative option to conduct a clearing sale during the COVID19 restrictions. Ray White Rural SA had developed a good business relationship with Allan Ebsary from Farm Clearing Sales over the past 10 years. The team were instrumental in ensuring the overwhelming success of the sale through their many hours of research to develop a suitable platform and process to conduct a timed online only clearing sale.