The rain was horizontal and the temperature was five degrees, however Ray White Wanganui still managed to draw a crowd of over 100 people to their recent Auction Night Extravaganza featuring Ray White New Zealand‘s CEO Carey Smith as special guest and head auctioneer.
“We are coming out of what can can be a quiet time so we at Ray White Wanganui decided to inject a bit of life into our property marketing with the Auction Campaign.” says Tim Hocquard from Ray White Wanganui. “Initially we thought we could have an auction event featuring 15 or so properties, however once we approached our clients with the concept we found we were overwhelmed with requests from our customers who wanted to be included in both the event and the auction process… which in turn led to the Auction Extravaganza.”
The Ray White Wanganui team eventually put put 21 properties up for auction on the evening – ranging from tidy and steady investment properties through to high-end architecturally designed homes plus four commercial properties. Calling it an ‘Auction Extravaganza’ the event was marketed via a five-week advertising campaign, which included some eye catching signage around the city.
An experienced auction campaigner himself, Carey Smith led the evening with local auctioneering personality John Blaikie for some light hearted charity auctions throughout the evening to raise money for the local Riding for the Disabled community.
As is the case with the auction process one property sold at the onset of the campaign, another four went just hours before the Auction night. Although only one property sold under the hammer – three of the properties had contracts on them immediately after the auction and another five were under negotiation. “This really is a great example of another auction success story” says Rae Beale, Central and Lower North Island Business Performance Manager for Ray White New Zealand. “Auctions are highly focused marketing campaigns designed to expose a property to the maximum number of buyers, maximise the sale price and minimise the number of days the property is on the market – giving the seller not one, but three opportunities to sell their property: before auction, at auction, and after auction… In an area were auctions are not typically used in the sales process, we were delighted to see our Wanganui office adopt the concept with such positive results for their customers.”
Auctions certainly continue to be a favoured method of sale in the real estate industry as both an effective and efficient method of sale, and Ray White has a long history in the real estate auction market. Ray White presently conducts more auctions than any other real estate company in Australia and pioneered in-room auctions – conducted by industry-leading auctioneers and backed by quality property presentations. According to Real Estate Institute of New Zealand data, auctions account for over 1 in 5 of all New Zealand property sales. – In Auckland the numbers are far higher with over that same period 38% of all sales being by auction – as evidenced by Ray White City Apartments whose recent auction successes have been featured on Interest.co.nz.
Tim Hocquard says the Ray White Wanganui team will certainly run an event like this again – with planning for their next auction event already underway. A similar Auction Night has also been planned for October by the Ray White North Shore Offices in Auckland who will be putting a selection of properties up for Auction at the Takapuna Boating Club – another evening that will be hosted by CEO, Carey Smith.