Fifteen months since our last room auction, we are smashing sales records and attracting larger and more diverse audiences than ever before. We are not alone in our experience, either.
You only have to look across the market at those who have been able to move operations online to see auctioneers posting impressive figures on the number of bids, bidders, lots and amount raised for sellers from live-streamed or online auctions. I think it’s a testament to those in the industry who were able to quickly adapt to the pandemic, but also how, as a market, we have improved the way we communicate the benefits of property auctions to investors, estate agents, property businesses and the general public.
At SDL Property Auctions, we have gone from hosting regional auctions in venues that have a capacity of up to 300 people, in Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Birmingham, to live-streaming our national property auctions online to numbers now hitting 15,000.
This huge increase in interest has also affected the number of bidders and the number of bids typically made in each of our auctions. We have moved from around 500 registered bidders and two to 20 people bidding on each lot, to 2,000 registered bidders and sometimes even up to 70 bidders per lot.
Female bidders on the up
With all the figures rising, it is no surprise that behind these are new audiences to property auctions. I think, traditionally, property auctions have been seen as a place for property investors, where often neglected or unwanted properties are bought and sold.
This perception is slowly changing as more people realise that you can buy and sell your next family home by auction, with many properties now being sold needing little or no more work done than one sold via private treaty.
And with this change in perception and the accessibility that online brings – of course accounting for the buzz the stamp duty holiday has created, too – it has attracted larger and more diverse audiences.
The increase in female bidders is a great example. From May 2020 to April 2021, SDL Property Auctions saw a 21% increase in the number of women bidding, compared with the same 12-month period in the year prior. It’s great to see and it might be difficult to pinpoint the exact reason for this increase, but you have to imagine that auctions being more accessible and a more viable option has played a part.
It is not just who is bidding that has changed, but the relationship between auctioneers and estate agents. In January to March this year, compared with January to March of 2020, we saw a 91% increase in estate agent referrals, with the overall amount of income we have raised by selling properties in partnership with agents tripling in March 2021 compared with March 2020. It is clear that the benefits of selling properties by auction are being realised by property people and the wider public.
Wider appeal of online
Many people have long been used to eBay-style auctions, which is what our timed auctions effectively are. I think the format of live-streamed auctions – which have many of the same elements as a physical room auction, with the auctioneer standing at the rostrum and all the usual words and phrases spoken – is maybe a more familiar environment to people who have little or no experience of property auctions.
We have all got used to accessing many of the products and services we want at the click of a button. Now property auctions are no different, and through our recent deal with Rightmove and its launch of a specific online conditional auction sales offering, we are another step closer to making auctions more accessible to a wider audience. Starting this summer, customers will be able to see the current bid and time remaining on Rightmove for our conditional lots, which represent around half of what we do.
There are many sectors that have seen customer numbers dwindle and sales fall during the pandemic, mainly because of accessibility issues. The auctions industry has bucked this trend and continues to do so, pulling in broader audiences and also changing perceptions about the process and types of property we sell.
I have been asked a lot over the last few months if we will return to room auctions and, although I don’t have a crystal ball, I think they will certainly come back in some form. However, I very much doubt this will be at the sacrifice of our new online counterparts. There is no point welcoming new faces to auctions only to shut the door on them again.
Further evolution will come, but the future of auctions is certainly looking more hybrid than any of us could have possibly guessed.
Andrew Parker is managing director and auctioneer at SDL Property Auctions
