As with a lot of companies during this past year or so, Hair & Son have had to do things a little bit differently to how they would usually conduct business, this is particularly evident within the Auction department. Hair & Son’s auctions have been successful for many years, resulting in a history of happy sellers who have been impressed with the option of selling their asset with a minimal fuss – exchange of contracts on the day, completion within 28 days and a good sale price achieved. We didn’t want the lack of people in a room bidding to disrupt our excellent record of successful auctions.
We decided to switch to telephone and proxy bids only, which was very new for all of us and a learning curve for our Auction Team Member, Rob, who needed to think on his feet and rely on the help of colleagues from other departments, ensuring everyone was confident with bidding on behalf of potential clients on the phone. The result of our hard work to ensure that there was as little disruption as possible paid off, we have continued to achieve a selling success rate of over 80% and our last event on 15th April was no exception.
Our April auction had a variety of interesting lots including flats in need of complete renovation, an interesting and vast mixed commercial building on Canvey Island, garages, freeholds and a house in Southend in need of refurbishing. Viewing numbers were high which resulted of course in a good number of telephone bidders, so much so that we all agreed it was almost like having bidders in the room again! The results speak for themselves, a 90% success rate and sale prices well in excess of the reserve prices set. Needless to say, we had lots of very happy clients, some of which were initially unsure as to whether or not to attempt to sell during a lockdown.
We are hoping with government restrictions easing, we will be returning to traditional room auctions later this year and look forward to welcoming people back, in the meantime it is business as usual in the “new way”.
To find out more about selling at auction, please call Rob Hennessy on 01702 394959.