At just 26, gym-loving David Evans is not the archetypal property auctioneer.
But the Allsop associate will be making his debut on the rostrum at the firm’s in-room residential sale on 21 September, at the May Fair Hotel in London, W1 – part of its largest residential sale in a decade.
Managing partner Chris Berriman and partners Richard Adamson and Jimmy Bruce will offer the bulk of the 268 in-room lots, but Evans will be commanding the room for around 20 of them.
You may also catch him on screen a few days later, when the firm continues its bumper sale by offering 231 lots via livestream from its offices.
This is another first, breaking with the eBay-style online auction it adopted at the start of the pandemic.
Pre-auction nerves
It is the atmosphere in the room that Evans is really looking forward to.
“There will be a bit more pressure, but I think it will also be easier than rehearsing with colleagues because there will be a room of people who are genuinely interested, who genuinely want to bid,” he says.
He admits to some pre-auction nerves and says going to the gym helps.
“It’s going to be nerve racking, but there’s no other option – you’ve got to do it,” he says.
His parents were both in the police service so perhaps the property gene skipped a generation from his grandfather, “a self-made chap who built houses and traded them on”.
Starting out
Evans says he did not have a particular passion he wanted to pursue after A-levels, so decided to try his hand at estate agency instead of going off to university.
He got his first property job at Carter Jonas in 2015, building up hands-on skill and expertise in lead generation.
Aware that his lack of a university education bucks the trend, he says he has turned it to his advantage as an interesting talking point.
“I do believe that if you’re reasonably nice to people and work hard you can get a long way in life,” he says.
Within two years of leaving school, he joined the residential team at Allsop.
“My role quickly morphed from a solely business generation role to something much more end-to-end,” he says. “I have my own clients who I look after, I deal with new clients on a daily basis, and I manage the auctions process from start to finish.”
Taking up the gavel
He insists he never had his eyes set on becoming an auctioneer. But his team clearly spotted something and pushed him to enter the RICS Matrics auction competition in 2019, from which he came away with a prize.
Then came Covid-19, pushing all in-room auctions online and forcing the industry to rethink its future.
But as client demand led Allsop’s return to the room in May, veteran Allsop auctioneer Gary Murphy moved on to Savills in June and Berriman approaches 60 next year, the time is right to begin bringing a new auctioneer forward.
In fact, Evans is around the same age Murphy was when he founded Allsop’s residential auctions business 37 years ago.
What will his style on the rostrum be like? “I think it’s a bit too early to say,” says Evans, “but I’ve always been told I’m reasonably calm and collected, which I suppose would help.”
So has he found his passion?
“Yes, I think I have. I love the business I work for. And the actual auction itself is enjoyable,” he says. “But the thing I enjoy the most is dealing with such a wide range of clients. It’s very good for developing your understanding of the market.”
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