Was it overpriced? No, not at all.

What did you think it would go for? I was hoping for $1.8 million, so I was on the money.

What was surprising about it?

There were three registered parties. I did expect the other two to participate, they just decided not to at the last minute. It would be stupid if I said "There is only one of you, so let's not run the auction and move inside privately". That's not how you run things.

The three-bedroom house had a standalone studio above the garage. Josh Hill Photography

I did take control and say "We're not passing it in. We're going to sell under the hammer". That's where it's legally binding. If I pass in the property to you, you can still walk away. My job is to protect my vendor and passing in wasn't in my vendor's best interests.

We negotiated on the auction floor while the auction was in operation, between the vendor and buyer.

The prospective purchasers tried to open at $1.65 million, which we rejected. Nobody wanted to play ball, so we did a vendor bid of $1.75 million. I then went to the buyer, and they made a bid of $ 1.76 million. That still wasn't close enough to reserve to call it on the market.


I'm whispering privately into the purchaser's ear: "You know the property has been hot to trot". I didn't need to embellish. My [buyer] had been there at every open.

The agent pushed ahead with the auction even though only one of the three registered bidders put their hand up. Josh Hill Photography

We had about 100 in the crowd watching the auction. They were in front of the auctioneer. They were private enough so no-one could hear my dialogue with them. But they were front and centre, they made sure people knew they were there to buy.

After another few minutes of speaking to them, they increased from $1.76 million to $1.79 million, which was closer to reserve.

There is no way buyer would have bid four times against himself if I had not established a good relationship with him in the four weeks prior.

Auctions are all about emotions. It's really about putting the vendor in a situation and the buyer in a situation where they need to make decisions and quickly.

'Auctions are all about emotions. It's really about putting the vendor in a situation and the buyer in a situation where they need to make decisions and quickly': Agent Simone Azzi. Josh Hill Photography

We probably would have eventually got the same result but it might have dragged out for hours of negotiations.

After a couple more minutes, speaking to the vendor and the purchaser, they agreed on an offer of $1.795 million and we sold.

Do you reckon we'll see another result like this: a) next week b) next year c) next cycle d) never?

a) Maybe next week if it's me selling? The inner west has definitely picked up. The market's definitely a bit more confident, but last minute, we were getting wedding jitters and cold feet. We'll see.