Auction is essentially a three-stage strategy to maximise the price and minimise the time it takes to sell your home. It serves notice that you’re serious about selling.

In stage 1, you throw the net out wide and go after every buyer who is looking in your area. You take the price off simply so you get more buyers to work with. Depending on your circumstances and the market, you may sell before auction day. Most agents allow that to happen. If that doesn’t happen, you sit down with the agent or auctioneer the day before the auction and work through the information you’ve gleaned from the market in the weeks leading up to that point. Using that information, you set the strategy for auction day.

Stage 2, the auction itself, may only be a few minutes long. You sell, you celebrate.

Stage 3 happens only if you don’t sell, in which case you sit down with the agent again and work through what has happened so far. Usually, you then put a price on the property based on the feedback you’ve received and so on.

With auction, you get all options. In the first stage, if more than one buyer wants to make an offer, you can call for their best offers to be on the table at a pre-determined time. If you don’t sell and go to stage 2, you have an auction. And if that doesn’t work, you have a normal agency situation.

It’s three strategies in one. That’s why the best in the country strongly suggest auction as a method of sale.