Selling your property

You've decided to sell, which is great! But the idea of an auction campaign is making you nervous. Here's the thing. There’s been so much data publicly available about what’s happening in the property market.

Buyers have the internet at their fingertips and can research and establish the likely maximum price they should pay for your property at any time. Having said that, the best way to convince potential purchasers to raise their limit is for them to realise that someone else is prepared to pay even more for your property.

Creating competition is vital to securing the best price

At Ray White, our entire family history has been based on creating competitive situations for our vendors. Auctions have proudly been part of the fabric of this fourth generation, family-owned and led business since 1902. This method of sale is one we believe in and have recommended to our clients since then. We still believe it’s the purest form of selling real estate.

Auction is a method of sale where the market determines the price of an asset in an open forum negotiation, which is essentially what happens on auction day.

Social proof

Buyers can look each other in the eye and see what someone else is prepared to pay for it, and can then decide if it’s worth more to them and continue bidding, all on an open and even playing field.

The vendor has the benefit of exposing their asset to the entire market and maintaining control of the process by only selling should their reserve price be met.

It’s also sold on favourable terms - which means you get an unconditional contract - which gives security to the transaction that what a bidder offers is what a bidder pays.

With other methods of sale, so often the contract price is renegotiated during a due diligence period for example, which might only come weeks or even months after the contract was agreed. It’s not unheard of for conditional contracts to fall over which is deeply disappointing for everyone.

Of course, you can still sell any time before the auction.

If you receive a good offer before game day, you can weigh it up. But through competitive bidding and open negotiation on the auction floor, our data proves you will likely receive at least 10 per cent more at auction.

So no matter what state the market is in, an auction campaign, if carried out correctly, gives you the best chance of creating that competition between bidders to achieve the maximum price for the vendor. So what are you waiting for?

At worst, an auction campaign gives you a platform where post-auction negotiations can take place to still achieve the best possible outcome.

When it comes to selling your home, you want to be safe in the knowledge that your property is in the right hands, but how do you go about choosing the right agent?

I’m looking to sell my property – how do I go about picking the right agent?

When a seller is starting the process of choosing an agent, the agent who is pitching the highest price point is usually of the highest consideration.

However, any agent can promise the world and still underdeliver. How do you know how the agent will deal with potential buyers when they come through your property?

See them in action

To start that vetting process as a property owner, you should go and see them in action.

You can enquire on properties they may have listed already and pretend to be a buyer to see what the level of service and engagement is like from them. You can attend an open home or private inspection and get an idea of how that agent would be acting for you with potential buyers for your property.

Make a checklist:

• What’s their follow-up like?

• Do they follow-up?

• How engaging are they?

• Are they trying to engage you with the property?

• Are they good at selling the features of that property?

• Are they engaging you in the buying process?

This can be a crucial first step because on many agent rating sites, you’ll rarely find an agent under 4.8 stars. It’s probably not the best source to go to when vetting agents, because most agents only publish their best reviews. So, getting that first-hand experience is the best way to go.

I've decided to sell my property and I have agents pitching – who do I pick and why?

When the time comes to choose an agent, if you don’t already have a relationship with an agent you know and trust, you often invite three agents to pitch.

It’s really important that you look for agents to prove and explain their process to you, as well as prove their ability to extract a buyer in the market place who will pay more than anybody else.

You should decide on the agent who can clearly articulate their process or structure which will enable the highest chance of a buyer purchasing the property for the highest price.

That generally comes by way of creating competition: creating an environment where they have multiple buyers competing against each other to drive the highest price for the property owner.

As the seller – what should you ask for at the listing presentation?

• Ask for a case study. Can the agent provide an example of where they've achieved a result that’s better than what the vendor wanted, or a result that has proven to show they've obtained the best price for a property?

• Ask for a written vendor report from a previous campaign they’ve run. In this you’ll find the proven structure of communication that you’ll likely get from that agent.

• Testimonials. Good and bad.

• Ask for comparable properties. What properties in the area with a similar criteria to your own have sold recently? Why and how was that price achieved?

When it comes to running a successful campaign, there are a number of different elements that need to come together, and a critical component is running an open home.

This is the time where a vendor really gets to show off their home to potential bidders and highlight the great benefits of buying their property.

What it also does is allow the agent to have a two-way transparent conversation with people viewing the property and their feedback then goes some way to setting a suitable reserve price.

It’s only natural that buyer feedback and a vendor’s aspiration on price may not always be in the same place, but the best auction campaigns are run on evidence and facts, so the buyer feedback throughout open homes is critical.

Dialogue needs to be consistent with everyone who steps through the door at an open so the communication between agent and potential buyer is a key aspect.

The best agents will then follow up with people who attended, to gauge where the interest levels are sitting and if there’s a desire to view the property for a second time.

Ideally, this generates offers from buyers who don’t want the home to reach the competitive arena on auction day but also gives a clear indication of where buyer expectations are.

This factual and evidence-based feedback then builds the environment for setting a reserve that the vendor would be happy with and keeps interest levels high among potential buyers.

Open homes are similar for both auction and private treaty, but during an auction campaign, it really can move the dial and set the precedent for how successful it will be at auction time.

There are a number of winning tactics for an auction campaign to be successful, and getting open homes right is certainly one of them.