We deal in numbers every day, but I think this is a number that stands out and deserves to be recognised. Morton currently has an auction clearance rate of 93.94%. The team is on fire. Yes, the market is incredibly strong, but our team isn’t just capitalising on the conditions, we’re challenging norms so we can go beyond expectations. The fact we are prepared to do auctions differently is a case in point.
COVID challenged the way we all did business. It forced us to look for ways to do things differently. We had to embrace things that might have already existed but felt a little scary, untried, and untested.
Online auctions were one of those things.
I’ve always believed in the ability of the auction campaign and process to deliver the very best possible result for a property. At Morton, we have a clear process for the team to work through for every auction that has been compiled based on the combined experience of our team. It provides flexibility to address the individual requirements and accentuate the unique characteristics of every property, but it crucially also ensures no opportunity or detail can be missed.
During COVID obviously, everyone was forced to run auctions where all parties were operating separately and online. It worked and it generated a real level of trust in the integrity of the system as a transparent, interactive, responsive, and secure platform to compete for a property.
And so even as restrictions have eased the Morton team have continued to offer online auctions to clients. Online auctions provide a level of flexibility that capitalises on the extraordinary demand that currently exists across the market.
Online auctions allow our Agents to amend the date of an auction in response to buyer interest without incurring any additional vendor costs. We can move faster to get a deal done rather than leaving everyone hanging. If our team is confident all interested parties have been identified and are ready to proceed why delay? We can move the auction forward and get the deal done faster. It still provides all parties with the opportunity to compete for the property and it removes the potential risk those interested parties may get cold feet.
Equally, if the marketing campaign is going gangbusters and continuing to generate new interest it might be in the best interest of the vendor to delay the auction date. Again, a delayed online auction date still provides complete transparency and allows all parties to participate.
And yes, even with this increased flexibility there are still occasions when a deal is done prior to the auction. There are still times when an offer is made that a vendor believes is acceptable and so decides not to proceed to the competitive auction space. It is the role of our experienced agents to manage that process carefully, with complete transparency and discretion to ensure all interested parties can be confident in the integrity of that process.
Managing all those variables our team have achieved a 93.4% auction clearance rate. That is the ultimate evidence that it works.