One of the big themes for 2015 is online property auctions. Am I a fan of this concept? No. Not at all.
I love eBay as much as the next person. When I need a new phone charger or a TV cable it is the first place I turn to. For items up to about £100. I mean, what is the worst case? The item does not arrive and I feel a bit silly for losing a few pounds so needlessly. But I think a property auction needs to be conducted in a grand room – with a stage and screens and people milling around. It is a place of business where large transactions take place and it needs to feel like something special is occurring that day. Never mind the fact that no computer software can ever replicate the skills of a good auctioneer – the ability to read the room, to squeeze a few extra pounds out of someone, to interact with the bidders, to read their minds. This all needs a human touch.
However, the world is moving forward. In fact, I created an online auction platform back in 2004 (auction-yourproperty.com), which I assumed would become the next big thing (it turned out to be not even the next tiny thing – I just blame the fact it was 10 years too early). Now, though, we have bitten the bullet and soon enough Auction House London will be providing an online auction facility. We will have to wait and see if it is successful. It is a strange experience to launch a product and half-hope that the marketplace does not want it, but companies need to evolve and those that believe they are perfect just the way they are will be the ones that soon find themselves losing business to competitors.
Online auctions have proved hugely successful in other industries and time will tell if the property industry receives it favourably too. Trying to convince buyers to commit to purchasing a £500,000 flat using a cyberspace environment – without the safety and comfort of being able to ask last-minute questions to a human being in a room full of other bidders, with a team of auction staff visibly taking cheques, handing out legal packs, filling in sales memoranda and creating that “legally binding” arena – just does not seem right to me. Maybe I am too much of traditionalist when it comes to auctioning off property. I hope the buying public is, too.
Sticking to the subject of all things online, the duopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla is finally being challenged by Onthemarket.com. Despite my politely asking OTM a few weeks ago if it is going to be including auction stock, I am yet to receive a response. So for now, Auction House London can continue with the big two without fear of missing out. But it will certainly provide an interesting decision for us, should it choose to welcome auctioneers on board. Its big thing is that you can have your stock on only one other main portal – effectively making the agent choose between Zoopla and Rightmove.
Zoopla is far cheaper, growing by the day and generally more loved than Rightmove. But Rightmove is still where all the traffic is and while it is painful to be told every other day that the prices are being hiked, the majority of us all still feel the need to stick with it. I truly hope that OTM is a success. The market undoubtedly needs a new player and we have all witnessed plenty of failed attempts by numerous other portals that have come and gone. If OTM can keep the cost to the agent sensible and guarantee sizeable exposure to the buying public, then it will have two of the main ingredients required to break in. Seems simple enough.
Let’s see if it can pull it off.
Andrew Binstock is a director and auctioneer at Auction House London
