Ever wanted to know what the big deal is with auctions?
We speak to Ray White Tea Tree Gully Principal | Auctioneer Sam Doman to find out why auctioning is his go-to sales method when it comes to selling real estate.
What are the benefits of auctioning?
The biggest benefit of an auction is to get our vendors an unconditional secured contract for their home earlier. Auctions push the envelope on the day and it feeds off buyers emotions to extract every cent possible. Plus, I never have had a sale fall over that was bought from an auction.
Unconditional means there are no conditional clauses in the contract such as pending finance - the sale is done and dusted on the day with no drawn out negotiations or ability to cool off after a building inspection.
How are you converting more sales into auctions rather than Expression of Interest or private treaty?
We still call a little less auctions than our private treaty but not by much lately.
We at Ray White Tea Tree Gully are leading the pack with auctions here in Adelaide’s north east, we just love and understand the process inside and out.
This is proven by our fantastic clearance rates - the amount of homes sold under auction conditions.
What is the secret to your success?
It’s not just about turning up on the day, there is plenty of preparation prior to the day including setting a market appropriate reserve and getting good feedback reporting that gives evidence to our sellers of the market’s position.
We also work extensively and transparently with the sellers and buyers so everyone has the best chance on the day. There are no prizes for second place.
We almost always go to the auction day and will very rarely sell a property prior to auction, ensuring the seller is getting the best price the market has to offer.
Transparency is the key with us and everyone gets the same chance on the day whether they are a first home buyer or developer.
What’s your marketing go-to?
Videos and social media campaigns are our marketing staples. Much of the enquiry we receive comes off the back of social media marketing and our high quality property videos and drone shots.
Styling is also a great idea and can often be the difference between a good result and a great result. We usually get our homes styled by Platinum Property Styling, they’ve also been a sponsor of the Ray White group in South Australia over the years.
Lately, we have also been getting building and pest inspections shared amongst our prospective bidders prior to the auction day and of course we always run plenty of great open homes, assisting whoever, wherever and whenever we can.
Our buyers are very much appreciative of the efforts we go to to help them get ready for the day, including our Loan Market Broker’s help where possible. Getting our clients ready to bid on the day is where we must help - this is also in our seller’s best interests.
What is your local auction market like?
Ray White offices listed 186 of the 453 auctions in the north east of Adelaide in the last financial year and more than any other district of South Australia over the last two years.
Ray White has a 41 per cent share of auction listings in the north east of Adelaide which is up 7.5 per cent from last year.
Our Ray White Tea Tree Gully office also has an in room auction venue in the same building as our office, next door in an adjoining furniture shop we run, called MyHouse YourHouse.
In this calendar year, we did get a couple of in room auction nights before COVID-19 hit and now we have since been adapting to doing online auctions with great results with the help of our corporate team.
Onsite auctions are now allowed back in South Australia and are working well, soon we’ll be back to calling our in rooms auctions at the end of August and we can’t wait.
We love helping our community and local sporting sponsorships with their charity auctions and getting the whole room buzzing, having a ball while fundraising.
I just love auctions and I think it shows with our whole office knowing the value of less days on the market, less fall overs with more happy clients.
Give us an example of a great recent auction result.
Anita Fox helped sell her mother’s house in June through auction. It was well known in the area because Anita’s father accidentally bought the house via auction in 1978 when a nose scratch was mistaken for a bid. Luckily, something that can’t happen nowadays.
It was a three week campaign which was perfect for Anita’s family because it gave them an end date and helped quickly wrap up the sale.
The first bid was $100,000 and it went up by hundred thousands from there until it sold for $646,000. There were eight registered bidders which is huge for an auction in our area and more than half were actively bidding.
In the end it went to a family who wanted to live in the area to be close to relatives and enjoy living in the great community in Houghton.
When we met with the Fox family we understood the family’s need to get their mother Gail into a nursing home. We advised auction as the best method of sale to quickly offload the house. It took just over three weeks from signing with our agency to signing the contract on the day.
Anita, her mother and her siblings were thrilled at the result and couldn’t recommend auctioning more - especially for a house that has such a unique history.
