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Clarence White from Menck White Auctioneers takes the win at this year’s Australasian Auctioneering Championships (AUSTROS) held in Sydney.
This is Mr White’s first time securing the title of Australasia’s top auctioneer at the AUSTROS Championships and has been eight years in the making.
This now makes him a five-time winner of the Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW) Award for Excellence in Auctioneering, following his wins in 2014; 2017; 2018; 2020, and now 2022.
Mr White came up against four other finalists in the competition for the internationally recognised accolade, with Robert Tulp from Apollo Auctions in New Zealand coming in as runner-up.
Stuart Ritchie from McGrath Estate Agents in NSW, Luke Banitsiotis from Woodards Blackburn in Victoria, and Conor Patton from Bayleys Realty Group from New Zealand were all contenders for the award this year.
“I have made the top five final on three occasions and been very close on two prior occasions before finally securing the win this time,” Mr White said.
“I’m incredibly humbled, honoured and grateful … It’s something I have been dreaming about, working towards and training for a long time.”
Altogether, 14 auctioneers across Australasia made it to the competition for day one of the event.
This year’s event, convened by the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) and the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ), was hosted by the REINSW at Randwick Racecourse.
In a history-first, this year’s AUSTROS judging panel had four female judges. The panel was chaired by chief judge Jesse Davidson.
In a statement, REIA president Hayden Groves expressed his delight after the “highly spirited” event and additionally congratulated Mr White.
He was pleased that this year’s championship was so well received, with top auctioneers from all over Australia and New Zealand competing.
Mr Groves went on to say that the championship is an opportunity to bring the industry’s most high-profile names together in competition for its most “coveted” awards.
Commenting on the benefits of the competition, Mr White said that it “helps us by throwing up those unusual challenges before we ever encounter them in the field. It promotes critical thinking, self-evaluation and innovation in preparedness for the wild, the weird and the whacky. And it also builds and trains the muscle of thinking on your feet.”
Mr White had six years of experience as an auctioneer with McGrath and BresicWhitney before founding his own brand, Clarence White Auctioneers, in 2018. In 2020, he joined Paul Menck in creating Menck White Auctioneers.
Mr White recently appeared on an episode of Secrets of the Top 100 Agents to unpack the current real estate market and auctioneering best practice.
AUSTROS 2023 will be held in New Zealand.
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