UNDER THE HAMMER: AUCTION STORY!

15 Sep 2025| Posted by: Dave Tidbold

Living and breathing real estate for 30 years has given me the special opportunity to be part of people’s dreams. Most people get through the selling and buying process unscathed and shed a big sigh of relief at the end. But for some other people buying and selling a home can be filled with high emotions and be very stressful if things don’t go to plan. It’s the weekly horror stories I have been exposed to over the years that make me cringe, but at the same time, fuels my passion to keep fighting to help people through the real estate minefield unscathed. 

‘Hey Dave, listen to what just happened to Justin and Robyn’, Heidi our team’s sales secretary said after getting off the phone. Hearing an outline of the story from Heidi, I decided to call Justin and Robyn to confirm the facts. We had just sold Justin and Robyn’s property. Justin and Robyn gave us a glowing 5-star review. But as home buyers, it did not go so well. They explained how they inspected a home listed with another local agency and instantly fell in love with the property. 

Justin and Robyn wanted to make an offer prior to the property going to auction in three weeks. They asked the agent to give an indication of what the sellers might accept, but the agent was not telling them anything. Justin and Robyn decided to put in an offer hoping they had a good chance to secure the property. 

The agent then came back and said the sellers needed to seek advice from a financial planner. Although this sounded odd at the time, Justin and Robyn waited a few days. After hearing nothing, they called the agent and were told the seller was advised by his financial planner he should go to auction now he has spent all the money on advertising. Now this is where alarm bells started ringing for me as I have heard the ‘financial planner’ stalling tactic many times before. This is a fabricated story by auction agents to deflect the focus off the agent so they can achieve two goals prior to auction day.

Firstly, to spend all the seller paid advertising budget to get maximum exposure for themselves, and secondly, to condition the seller’s price expectations to a low reserve amount that guarantees a sale on auction day. In essence, agents do not want to sell a property before auction day.

Justin and Robyn were forced to attend the auction for the home, which was conducted in an auction room, along with other properties. Justin and Robyn witnessed for the first time in-room auctions. ‘What a circus, the agents acted like movie stars with unnecessary over the top self-promotion about the agency and very little about the properties being sold’, they said. ‘It also appeared 95 percent of the people in the room were spectators and young rookie agents learning the ropes.’ 

Justin and Robyn were shocked to see other properties had no bids and others sold for thousands below what they thought was a fair price. When it came time to bid on their dream home, they were the only bidders. The auction had failed. Justin and Robyn were taken aside and pressured to make an immediate offer at any price, as the sellers of the property had bought elsewhere and needed to sell urgently. Under pressure, they just decided to offer the same amount as three weeks ago. The sellers jumped at the offer and Justin and Robyn bought the property. Sadly, for the sellers, Justin and Robyn would have paid much more if the environment was right. 

‘This has been the worst experience we could have ever imagined.’ ‘Never would I recommend anyone, buyer or seller put themselves through an auction,’ Justin said. ‘A friend had a similar experience and said you ‘poor things’ - most agents are disgusting to deal with when you are trying to buy a home, and you can’t trust their motives when you are selling.’ 

 When Justin and Robyn decided to sell, they chose our agency to sell their property based on a referral from a friend and the structured selling strategy called The SMARTRE SALE. The SMARTRE SALE has 8 components, which include advertising a property with an asking price, and implements a smart marketing campaign to reach a larger buyer audience. If you are about to embark on your real estate journey, we would love to help guide you through the process. 

 Justin and Robyn gave Tidbold Real Estate a 5-star review: ‘A dedicated and professional team of real estate agents. I love the fact that you have a team of agents working for you to sell your house. Ben Hayward was calm, professional, and not pushy. He was very informative and clearly outlined what steps we had to take to sell for the highest price with no risk and no stress.'