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An international real estate group has achieved “phenomenal success” after introducing an Australian-style auction platform in the United States.
Harcourts began trialling its Australian auction process in southern Californian in late 2014. The project was overwhelming successful in a market where auctions are commonly associated with default listings or properties sold under distress.
Harcourts’ director of auctions Ben Brady said he travelled to the US to determine if auctions as a method of sale was a possibility for the local market. He was shocked to learn that sellers were only offered one way of selling property – the traditional priced method.
“There was also a real lack of transparency in the transaction created by multiple-offer situations as well as individual buyer and seller representation,” Mr Brady said in a statement.
“We saw auctions as a huge opportunity to change the real estate culture and provide Harcourts with a point of different in the United States.”
Since then, the Harcourts auction team has sold more than 500 properties in Nevada, Oregon, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, with the platform soon to be introduced in Hawaii. The company said it has experienced “phenomenal success” in the US.
“I think the US market was ready for a change and everyone has been very open to discussing the advantages of auction,” Mr Brady said.
He said that with a 92.5 per cent clearance rate in the US and 58.4 per cent of dwellings sold prior to auction, he expects these figures to trend higher under the hammer as more buyers and sellers become better educated about the auction process.
“Our sales results are tremendously strong and this is great evidence to show sellers that the Harcourts auction process is a superior way to sell property,” Mr Brady concluded.
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