Based on Reported Auction Results*

High Success Rates Continue Despite Two Lockdowns

It’s no easy task for anyone during lockdowns.

Scheduled street auctions bring welcome free entertainment for a few minutes to a local neighbourhood. It’s serious business for the participants and contenders but a good show for everyone else. Owners of nearby properties relish the opportunity to get a view into current values. Rising sale prices bring an inner warmth and are the stuff of street gossip, all while the gladiatorial battle to buy plays out in front of them…

However in lockdown, property listing activity, inspections, auctions and sales all grind to a near halt. And with each successive reopening buyers, agents and vendors need to pick up where they left off – usually having received no notice just before the preceding interruption hit. It’s disruptive and where sentiment plays a large part in this industry, familiar routines are out the window. Having experienced two lockdowns of nearly a fortnight each, the market has held up well and the wheels of industry grind on!

Where campaigns hit by lockdown occurs, if campaigns are all but completed save only for the auction itself,  these auctions revert to a covert affair – no touching! No show also for the neighbourhood; no public performance for the publicity seeking auctioneer! Instead, a “Zoom” auction takes place on your computer – like a Skype call with half a dozen faces and the auctioneer in his/her gym gear (only the lower half that you can’t see of course). These results often end up well as buyers have already inspected and decided they were interested.

During the last Quarter, some auctions would have been deferred/rescheduled and a few even cancelled. But overall the show “went on” and seems destined to continue on its current trajectory. Real estate has some “immunity” to covid, but headaches definitely occur.

Contact us to help you buy at auction or find your right property.

Bruce Renowden
Renowden Buyers Advocates

0412 100 501