Real Estate Auctioneers vie for Title
Top auctioneers from Australian and New Zealand are bidding for the title at the Australasian Real Estate Institute’s auctioneering championship in Hobart. The venue for the competition is the Wrest Point auditorium full of make-believe buyers throwing obstacles at the competitors.
Last year’s winner is 47-year old Peter Walker of Canberra. He was able to display his uncanny ability to think on his feet and add at lightning speed. He was was able to auction off a fictitious Sandy bay home for $705,000.
According to Walker, all it takes is a lot of practice. “A month ago I auctioned a house and we were above the reserve when a man asked if I would take a $250 bid,” he narrates. “We ended up getting another $44,000 in $250 increments, it took 35 minutes to sell the property.”
The even is about promoting auctioneering as the real estate industry’s preferred mode of sale. The organisers say it is also a good venue for the participants to keep up to date with the new trends and practices in real estate auctioning.
