Kosma Comino: the auction strategy that can add six figures to your sale price

Episode 04 of Raising the Bar is live. 🎙️

George sits down with auction specialist Kosma Comino to chat all things auctions - the process, the risks, and the rewards. 🏡

They cover why auctions are on the rise in QLD, the power of preparation and why Kosma believes auctions are the best path to premium results. 🪧 

If you’re in property, you’ll want to hear this. 

Transcript

Welcome to the Raising the Bar podcast, where we story tell excellence in Queensland Property. I'm your host, George Sourris from Empire Legal.

 All right. Kos Comino, welcome back. 

Good to see you again, Georgie. 

We're going to take a bit of a different angle today, man. We're going to talk about auctions. Cool. Auction specialist Kos Comino. Yep. From LJ Hooker Mount Gravatt. Yep. Or Property Partners. Property Partners. Mount Gravatt, Sunnybank 

Hills. Same. Same. Yeah.

Many names. 

Mate, before we kick off, I'm just going to go straight into one of these things I've got written down here. I just have to do it. Yep. So, I've heard through the grapevine that you've owned 10 plus Suzuki Jimny's - true or false? 

Yeah. Suzuki, Vitaras and Jimny's Yes. 

10. You reckon? 

Yeah. I think I probably had more than 10.

Yeah? 

Yeah. 

Why? 

I love them, man. They're so much fun. They're good on the beach. I don't know. They're cheap. Yeah. I have a soft spot for them. 

There you go. Fun fact guys. Yeah. Yeah. 

It's really odd. 

Anyway, back into the content. Raising the Bar, where we story tell excellence in Queensland property. Alright, Kos let's start with the obvious.

Auctions, Queensland, what are they, what's the process? How does it work? Yeah. Because obviously, some people may be new to the property game. Mm-hmm. Especially Queensland. We do things a little bit differently than other places. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's your bread and butter, right? Yep. Like you are an auction specialist.

Yep. Yep. Tell us about it. 

Yep. So I'd say probably 80, 90% of my business, is auction. And typically, you know, in Queensland it hasn't been a really popular process in selling, but now it's starting to be you know, compared to down south, it's pretty much the norm there. But how sort of they work in Queensland is, we'd advertise a property for sale with going to auction, and if you're a buyer that you're interested in the property, you'd come and have a look.

And if you're interested in purchasing that property, you'd come on a, a certain day, like a Saturday. Yeah. And, chuck your hat in the ring and stick your hand up and bid for the property. So when you're purchasing at an auction, you are purchasing unconditionally. 

Yes. As 

opposed to private treaty where you can put an offer, offer with subject to finance or building a pest.

With an auction in Queensland, you are, you are purchasing unconditionally. So you've gotta have all your ducks in a row and have done your research prior I, I believe anyway. 

We see clients all the time that say, oh, I'm going to auction on Saturday, and it's always on like a Thursday or a Friday that they contact us as well.

I'm going to auction tomorrow. Last minute. Yeah, last minute. What do I need to do? Yeah. So yeah. I guess for people that have maybe have had no exposure, mm-hmm, private treaty is you want to sell a house, I want to buy a house. Yep. We negotiate. Yep. And then maybe have a contract subject to building and pest or finance. Correct.

Or whatever it may be. Yep. So that's just a, the "normal" way Yep. Is just someone wants to buy, someone wants to sell, and they negotiate. Yep. That's a private treaty when it gets signed, that's the private treaty, right? Yep. Whereas an auction is an actual event Yep. Where people register to bid. Yep. And if you, if you are registered to bid and you are the successful high bidder Yep.

Providing that the reserve's been met. Yep. You're buying that property. Yep. You are legally on the hook. Yep. At the fall of the hammer if you're the high bidder Yep. To buy that property. 

Correct. When you're sticking your hand up, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions that are set by the owner.

Yep. The owner might set the, the terms and conditions. Conditions might be 5% deposit and the 30 day settlement, whereas with private treaty, you are submitting an offer saying, okay, the owner's agreeing to your terms and conditions and your terms and conditions might be only a $5,000 deposit as opposed to a 5% deposit with a 60 day settlement because it suits your, your situation better to do that.

So an auction in Queensland at the moment really is in favor of the seller because the buyers are agreeing to their terms and conditions. 

Yes. Okay. So say I'm the high bidder. 

Mm-hmm. 

And I, I buy this property Yep. But I actually don't have my finance. 

Yep. So 

what's the score? 

Yeah. So if you've purchased a property, hypothetically you've paid a million dollars Yep.

And you are pre-approved to $900,000 and you've tried to stretch yourself a little bit more, you've gone back to your broker and $950,000 is all you can go to. First of all, I suggest trying to borrow some money from family and friends because if you are in breach of a contract and you can't afford the property you know, it's very heavily weighted in the seller's favor.

So if you cannot afford it and you cannot settle the property, you will lose your deposit and you'll forfeit your deposit, which is a 5 or 10% deposit. Yeah. So hypothetically you'll lose $50k if it's a a 5% deposit on a million dollars or $100k if it's 10%. Yep. And, 

you know, that's people's life savings usually.

Yep. That, that's normally 

a deposit, half a deposit or a, a deposit. Yeah. And not just that. If the seller then sells the property at a lower figure, they can sue you and go after you for the discrepancy. So if I've sold the property for a million and the buyer loses their deposit Yep. So they've lost $50,000 at a 5% deposit, so they've lost $50 grand and then I've resold it for $900,000, so $100,000 dollars less.

The seller then can sue them. Which is another $100,000, plus any costs involved in reselling that property if it's re auctioned etc. It's cheaper, well explained. Yeah. It's cheaper to basically settle on the property, so borrow some money, resell it, it's very heavily weighted in the seller's favor.

Yeah. So you can't just walk away. That's, that's what we're getting at here. At the fall of the hammer. Mm-hmm. That property is sold. Correct. And if you can't settle, then there's major repercussions. The least of which being deposits are gone, any losses suffered, you're going to get sued for 

Correct.

Almost 

every time. Like obviously the seller has to choose to sue. Yep. But if they genuinely can't get a higher offer than what happened at that auction, Mm-hmm, which I would argue is a true test of the market that time, right? Correct. So that is the market value of that property. Yep. Correct. To find a higher offer or a higher buyer is, probably unrealistic, depending on the market

of course. Yep. Yeah, you as a, as a buyer that can't actually buy, if you're the winning bidder, it can ruin your life. 

Correct. It, it really can and it can stop you now, you are once trying to purchase a property. It can stop you now from ever getting a property. So, some advice is to do a lot of research before you

go and purchase at an auction. But also, I think now as a buyer, you have to get familiar with that process because there are going to be more auctions in, you know, Brisbane, Queensland over the next 10 years, I believe anyway. 

Down south they have high auction rates. It's pretty normal down there, isn't it?

Mm-hmm. Compared to us. I know our volumes are a lot lower. 

Yep. 

At Empire, we're conveyancing specialists, right. So we obviously have a process where if someone says they want to purchase an auction mm-hmm, a good honest agent would say, would you'd scope out that buyer, wouldn't you? Of course you'd make sure you know, Hey, do you have pre-approval?

Of course. Do you know what you're doing? Of course. Have you ever bought a property before? Have you ever bought an auction before? Yep. I'm guessing. I'm just taking a stab. They're probably common questions. You'd all the time be qualifying these correct prospects. These buyers.

Correct. As an agent, our job is to qualify buyers and give feedback to the owner. Protect the owner as well. Yep. So, you know, we don't want to have a person bidding that is not in a position where they should be bidding. 

Yeah. 

We're just going to create more work for ourselves and, you know, really put ourselves in a very vulnerable position.

Selling me as an auction agent, and I also sell private treaty. Yes, there is so much more work involved in being an auction agent and running an auction than doing a private treaty or just whacking it up with a price. But there is benefits on why you do an auction. 

Well, let's jump into that, what's an example? You've obviously got expectations that have to be managed. When you helped me sell my place mm-hmm. And I'm like, how much am I going to get? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you're like, well, how long's a piece of string? Correct. Correct. And I just remember hassling you and hassling you and hassling you.

Yep. And to your credit, you are really strong with being like, look, here's probably, maybe a range. Yeah. But you never know. You could get this aah what'd you call 'em? Like a, a white horse or a dark horse or someone that rocks up on the day rock up day. Yep. That we don't even know about this guy. Correct.

And he comes in, he wants that house, (he or she) and bang - will pay significantly more. 

Yep. I, I've realised as well in the times that we live in, people are time poor, so 

thank they can, 

they can come in and make a decision in, in minutes. I've had so many auctions in my career now where the dark horse has come on the day and bought, and I'm signing the contract with them after the auction, and they said, Kos can we have a look upstairs?

Because we haven't even been upstairs yet. 

Wild. 

I'm like, geez, you just spent $1.5-$2 million on a property. What do you mean? You haven't even looked at it yet, 

man. So, but are these knockdown jobs or not necessarily, like not always, right? Not 

always. Yeah. You know, could be a really nice established home.

Yeah. Most of the time it is a more established home. 

Wow. And sometimes they haven't even looked inside or looked upstairs. Correct. Correct. Correct. 

The benefits of doing an auction today really are you are negotiating upwards without conditions. So it starts at a certain price. Yes. And the, the, the price is increasing unconditionally.

Whereas with private treaty, you, you're aiming at a price and you're trying to negotiate the price down with conditions. As a seller, which one do you want to be getting a, an increased price with unconditionally, or a, a fixed price and dropping the price with conditions? I know which side of the table I'd want to be on.

But yeah, you, and you 

don't have to sell if it doesn't hit, like, on the Correct. That's another, I guess, really important point. If you don't get that reserve mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Then you don't have to sell the house. 

Correct. I, I sorry to cut you off, but Yeah. Well, 

no, I was just going to add onto the back of that.

I remember when we were doing our place and you sold it for me, I remember going into that room and you said to me, you said, man, if you are not happy with this 

mm-hmm. 

Say no. Yeah. I'm not here to get your commission. Yeah. If you actually don't believe this is a good price for the house.

Mm-hmm. I won't be offended. Say no. Yeah. And that's what I'm like, man, this is good. Yeah. It really reinforced with me that you didn't care about the commission. Correct. You just wanted to do the best possible job for me. And you, you said, you said if this falls through, we've got a few people in the wings and we can negotiate after.

Yep. But if you want it sold today and you want to walk away from this and it's done. 

Yep. 

We can go ahead with this. 

Correct. You gave me some 

options. 

Yep. I, I had one two weeks ago, got to $1.52m on the day, and I went up to them and they wanted a little bit more and I could have put a lot of pressure on them and said, no, you're taking this.

I didn't. I said, look, I think we can get more after. Passed it in. I sold it a couple days after for $1.566m. So I've had many great results in my career that have actually been after auction, and I've made the decision where I've said, no, I'm going to pass it in. 

How do you know? 

Experience, experience, feedback from buyers, comparable sales.

Yeah. 

It's not just like crossing our fingers. Once again, there's a lot of data that we can get yeah, yeah. To make a decision and make a an informed and an executive decision that, hey, this is the best, this is going to be the best price or the best result. I've had auctions in my career that have surpassed the re reserve by half a million dollars.

I've had very successful auctions that I've even haven't even hit the reserve, and we've sold them. So it, it's really up to the seller's situation. Everyone's in a different situation. 

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the key, isn't it? Why does this seller want to sell this house? Yep. Yep, 

yep, 

yep. 

I've had ones where, you know, the bank's knocking on the door and I've had to sell it on a Saturday before the auction, because literally the property's going to get taken.

Like it. Time is of the essence. 

We've done a few together, I think actually now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Years back. Five, six years ago. Yes. Yes. The client was in hot water. Yes. But the bank hadn't yet stepped in. They were about to, about to. And I remember you called and you said, this guy needs some help. 

Yep. 

And yeah, you got it sold.

Was he 

a Captain or something, or was it. 

Yeah. A General or something like that. Yeah. And there was a few road bumps with getting the house ready for sale. Yep. Paying tradies and stuff. Yep. But we got it done. Yep. And I guess that's also, not so much talking about the auction process now, but it's the strength of relationships.

Yes. Like, yes. 

We get on the phone, we fix problems. 

Yep. So running an auction, it's a timeframe. We've got to convert buyers into bidders, we've got to convert someone that doesn't have a pre-approval in place. Hey, have you had a pre-approval? No, we haven't.

Would you like me to reach out to my broker who can help you? Exceptional service. I personally use him. So I would refer a broker. Hey, have you had through the contract? Oh, no, we're not we're not sure of, you know, this, this, and this. And I'd do as much as I can to explain it, but they don't have trust as much with an agent as compared to a lawyer.

So I would refer them to a lawyer, Hey, yeah, it's true. You know, have you chat, have a chat to George, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So getting them all, getting the, helping them get their ducks in a row, and it's ultimately doing the right thing by your client, who's the seller. 

Yeah. Well look agents, not all agents, but as a whole, I guess agents do cop a bad rap. But course I think it's totally unfair. I mean, I've, I've seen people think, oh yeah, you just signed this house up and then you make all this money. I mean, I've watched many, many, I know hundreds and hundreds of agents across Brisbane and the Gold Coast that we work with every day, and man I always say, I wouldn't want to be you guys. Oh, I don't know how you first of all guys do it. First of all, 

95% of agents don't make any money. It's the 5% that are making 95% of the income. Yeah. And the ones that are making the income are the ones that are working really hard, a lot of stress you know, what's the word I'm looking for?

Phone 

calls, man. Phone calls. Like, you know, we, we, we are a very heavy business in terms of, we have a lot of clients, hundreds every month, new clients, every single month. Mm-hmm. And we're on the phones all day. But with our firm at, at five o'clock, our phone's shut off. Yep. And that's a decision that we made for the happiness of our staff.

Yep. 'cause law firms trade traditionally 8.30 or 9, until 5.. Yep. Yep. After 5, nothing really is going to happen. Mm-hmm. But you guys, it's a different world. Yep. You're still working, you're still getting deals together. Yeah. You're getting auctions ready, doing all this stuff outside of those business hours.

Yeah. And, and. People go, oh, I'd love to earn a lot of money just to answer my phone, but it's not just answering your phone. That's the first part of answering the phone. The second part is, you know, I'll have a call on a Friday night at 10 o'clock at night, getting someone ready for auction the next morning, a 9.30am auction.

I love calls on Sunday night. Having issues with paying their deposits because they've bought at auction on a Saturday and it needs to be paid by Monday, 5:00 PM So there's, 

and they're freaking out. They're freaking out on their lawyer. Freaking, yep. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

So they're relying on you, so you're taking on all this extra stress.

And yeah, there's a reason that certain times that paycheck is good. Well, man, I literally 

had this written down right. I've said. I've seen you at a wedding last year, respond to a prospective buyer at 9:00 PM on a Saturday to close a deal. Yep. Shout out to Jono and Elenni. That was at their wedding.

This is a real story. Yes. We were there and man, I literally was standing next to you and I'm like, there's no way you're going to go deal with that. And you're like, man, I have to, I have to. Yep. Because I have to close this. Yep. And I'm like, but you're at a wedding. And you're like, yeah, but I can fix this right now.

Yeah. 

And, and I thought, wow, what, what I do and what you do. Is very different. 

Yeah. And I think also, I'd feel guilty if I'm selling someone's property and you know, there's an opportunity to help them get this deal done. And I've said, no, I'm not going to do it till tomorrow. I've had deals where they've, they could have fallen through if I left it the next day.

Like during COVID. Yeah. People were purchasing and pulling the pin as COVID hit because they were freaking out. They thought the market was going to drop. And I had, at that time, I think I had 13 auctions running in a row, right as COVID hit. And I had people dropping out and I had to close. I sold them before auction.

I had one that I had to close right then that night, and if I didn't the next day, I probably would've cost the owner $100,000. So, you know, a hundred thousand dollars tax free is a lot of money for some people. Most people. 

You just reminded me of, again, going back to that experience I had with the auction process which was when you sold for me.

Mm-hmm. I recall you sat down with me and we made the decision, I signed the Form 6 up. Mm-hmm. And you got a calendar out. And I'd never sold a property this way before. Mm-hmm. And you circled a date. It was three months in the future. 'cause I was building and the build wasn't complete, as you'd know.

And I remember you circled it and you said, this is the last day that you can sell this house. Because I reckon with all these interest rate rises mm-hmm, we're going to have trouble after this. This is like the hard deadline. It was the 

election. I think it was. The election was coming. After the election, the rates were going to go up, speculation and and 

surely they kept going up and up and up.

They did. I can't remember what rate rise it was. Maybe the eighth or the ninth or something like that. It was pretty late in the piece. And I just remember you saying, this is the deadline. Mm. Tell your builder, finish this house. Yep. We must sell it by this date. Yep. Otherwise, in your opinion, and we were guessing,

mm-hmm, it was going to not be so great and, and, and, 

and it wasn't - that man my mind popped. Yeah. Those, those couple months were really rough. Now the market bounced back and the market always does. Yeah. Up and down, sideways. But for me 

and my needs, 'cause I'd bought another property. Yep. I had to get out of that one.

Yep, 

yep. I remember you saying, mate, what? Whatever it takes. This is the deadline. 

Yep. 

And then we reverse engineered the campaign mm-hmm. From like staging and mm-hmm, all sorts of stuff to, to get ready for that. Of 

course. Yep. So there's a whole process. It's not just, once again, cross our fingers. We're planning ahead.

We're where we're, we're gathering buyers to bidders and we're getting unconditional sale. It's very straightforward. I like 

that. Buyers to bids, 

buyers to bidders bids, 

because I guess if they're not bidding, they're not buying either. Correct. Correct. Yeah. You can talk the talk, but until you've got that paddle and you're actually bidding, mm-hmm,

you're no, you're a nobody in the process. 

It's a bums on seat game. You have 2 bidders, or you have 22 bidders. You're probably going to have a better outcome with 22 bidders. But I've had auctions in my career where I've had 1 bidder. I had 7 last year with just 1 bidder. We sold it on the day with 1 bidder above reserve.

It's hard to do and it takes time, and you've just got to find out their situation as much as you work for the seller and you know their situation. Yes, you got to find out the buyer's situation. Why are they buying this property? 

Are they motivated? Is this same, are they motivated same property, or are they, they're not really that emotionally invested and it's just some investment property for them.

Why are they purchasing this one? Is mum and dad close by? Is this the only one they've seen? Have they got all eggs in one basket with this one? So it's up to, you know, the agent to, to find out and ask all these questions, because the more questions you ask, the more information you're going to get. 

And I guess you're asking those questions over and over and over again, aren't you?

Yeah. 'cause you, you've gotta qualify all of these buyers. Yep. Yeah. How, like, what sort of bidding power do they have? Mm-hmm. Yeah. What type of person timelines, 

what type per, what type of personality are they? They're very dominant, aggressive person. So they, they might bid very aggressively and you might have them as one, and a very timid bidder

So you've gotta work out their personality type, the situation. There's so much more involved behind the scenes of creating competition and having a good auction. 

  📍  📍 Alright, so that probably works perfectly Kos with jumping into the next section, which is why are you so passionate about the auction process for your clients? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, the lion's share of your business is now auction. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Tell us more. 

Yeah, so I've had too many success stories with that auction process. And I've done a lot of private treaties, Yep. Just putting it up for sale with a price. Yep. I've just had too many great results, too many success stories with that process. So I've stuck to that process and there is more work involved for the agent, but there's more recognition for the agent.

There's a better outcome for the seller, statistically, in the areas that I sell in. And once again, you're getting an unconditional sale, that's so important. As humans, we can just change our mind straight away. 

Oh, seller's remorse is also a thing. Yeah. And seller. Why is remorse seller's remorse and seller's remorse?

Yep. Yeah. On both sides. Yep. I had one last week, someone called and said, oh you know, I'm, I'm the seller. We weren't representing these people, but it was a friend's friend that called for some advice and, oh, I just don't want to sell my house anymore. Yep. And I said, oh, too bad. Yep. Shouldn't have signed a contract.

Did 

they pay the deposit too late or something where you can pull out? Yeah. Look, 

there's, there's, there's a few little tricks we can try, but I asked all those questions and there was no way out for this guy. Yeah. And I said, done. I said, man, you've got sellers remorse. Mm-hmm. Like, sorry, you shouldn't have signed the contract.

Mm. 



Sorry. And, and if that does happen, it's either the situation has changed, or maybe they feel like maybe they've undersold the property. So it's probably the agent hasn't given them enough information and helped them make that decision. They've kind of, you know, left with what if, what if we did this or what if we did that?

Or like I said, the situation's changed itself. 

Well, I remember. Years ago when we first started working together. Did you call it there was like the three D's or something? It was like yeah. 

Why everyone sells. Yeah. Why people sell. There's 

a formula for this, right? Yeah. Yeah. So 

I, I've never in my career ever had anyone call me and say, I'm selling because the market's good, or I'm selling because the market's bad.

They're either relocating, they're upsizing, they're downsizing, and with death, divorce, downsize, downsize, upsize. So then normally they're the three - Death, Divorce, 

Downsize are the usual motivators on why someone would sell a property. 

Yep. They might say, we say, an investor cashing up, but they might have had a death, they might have had a divorce.

There's a real reason behind it. Why they're actually selling. Yeah. You see all the time, parents' property, parents pass away. Mm-hmm. The second, it's pretty rough when you think about it like this, they, they've just passed away. Yeah. The 

second they get the property, 

man, the kids like, can I sell it right now?

Yeah. Yeah. And we get questions all the time from agents going, how do I do the Form 6 properly so it's correct. 

Yep. 

Has it gone through 

probate? All that sort of stuff. Yeah. 

And yeah, it can be sold straight away, but you think yeah, that, that's for sure Death. Divorce, pretty self-explanatory.

Yeah. They don't want to live in the same house anymore. Yep. And the Downsize / upsize. Yep. Yeah, we can't fit in the house anymore. We need a bigger house. Don't need a big house. 

Yep. We don't need a big house. We're going to move to an apartment. Lifestyle change. Lifestyle change. Yep. Yep. So the lifestyle change always goes to divorce, downsize, you know, that sort of stuff.

Mm-hmm. I've had too many success stories with the auction process. I don't know how many auctions I've done now in 10 years, maybe almost a thousand. I've had so many great success stories. I've had some tougher scenarios as well. They're not always yay $200,000, $500,000 over reserve.



And I guess you'd have instances where people don't even register, right? Of course. Does that actually happen? 

Yeah, many times in my career. What do you do? Once again, it's just a process. So we've tried to sell it to auction, it hasn't happened. Yep. We've passed it in, and now we're going to put for sale.

And when you change it to a for sale, it's like you're starting again, you're a new property. Whereas if you're on it's fresh. It's fresh. Yeah. If you go on the market with for sale, you're on the market for four weeks and you haven't sold it, you might, you might be getting stale. Whereas with an auction, you've tried to do the auction process.

It hasn't happened, but then you can do for sale after. So there's, you know, that second chance. It's like a second wind. 

Yeah. Second wind. Yeah. 

Yeah. Correct. Well, 

okay. Let's just jump into that a bit deeper then. Mm-hmm. There's some people that are heavily in the auction camp.

Mm-hmm. Like you, you obviously believe in auction of course, but this was an example of say, I don't know what this property was, but obviously it didn't attract interest. Could that, could that have been the property, the market? Yep. I mean there's obviously heaps of reasons, right? Many factors. Why wouldn't people in this situation end up

registering? 

Yeah. Many factors. One could be the property itself has a lot of hurdles. Yeah. One could be the market's really tough. So 2016 and 17, the market was nuts. Yeah. And then 2018, it turned very quickly because of the banking, well, there was Royal Commission, a lot of properties on the market sitting.

So buyers had a lot of choice. There weren't as many buyers. And the buyers that were around, they were putting offers with just the stupidest conditions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was a very tough year. So. The clearance rates dropped and I think at, at a low that year, I remember, I think it was like 22% Wow.

Was the clearance rate. And in Sydney they whinge when the clearance rate is at 70%. Yeah. It's a bad market mate. That's a very good market to me. 

Yeah. Well it's, it's funny, you never even think of factors like it could just be people can't get the money. Yeah. 

People can't get the money. Yep.

But then there's obviously on the other side of the coin, there's all these people with money, yes, that are looking for a bargain. 

Yep. Correct. I've had a lot of mortgagee repossessions. I've done Public Trustee auctions and they normally do really well because everyone thinks they're going to get a bargain.

And you've got everyone that comes out of the woodwork, they're very excited for it. Yeah. Yeah. And the competition, heaps of bidders, heaps of bidders pushes the price up. 

Auction process. Auction process. 

Great. It works. Yeah. The, the other thing I think that's important as well is with pricing property, everyone leans on the agent to get the price correct.

And we don't always get the price right. Yeah. You know, I've had ones where early on in my career, I've overpriced it. I thought, oh, that's going to be worth that. And it just wasn't, yes, and not as many people came through. I've had ones in my career where I thought, okay, it's going to get this price, and I've priced it and I've had so much interest and I've sold it for a hundred thousand above the list price, not offers over it, but above.

Yeah, the list price. I've had so many auctions recently where, okay, it's going to be sold between $1m to $1.1m. Seller wants $1.1m, might get them $1.15m and it sells for $1.6 million like crazy. We're just way off because the market's just moving so much and we can't keep up with the market. 

Or it could be a special property, right?

Yeah, a special property, a subdividable block or whatever it may be. Really nice property. You only need two people, right? Yeah. They really want it. Or, or even even you said before one, one 'cause what You can vendor bid. 

Yep. Can vendor bid. 

Can you just quickly explain that? Yeah. Before we wrap this up, what, like, vendor bidding, what is it?

If your reserve is $1.5 million and you are at the auction, and the auction stops at $1 million, your auctioneer can do a vendor bid on behalf of the owner, unlimited, a million million bids, but not above the reserve price. So if the reserve is set at $1.5, yep, then they can only go to that figure and not above.

 I set two reserves when I run an auction, so I set a really high reserve. Yep. Just in case we need to do vendor bids and we can get it above. So if the seller wants $1.5, I'd set a reserve of $2 million. So you can set two, I can set two reserves. Okay. So I'll set a really high reserve. Yep. And then a worst case reserve where I can come and talk to them.

Okay. 

And the high one's there just on purpose to try and get someone up against the, the auctioneer a bit more in 

the 

tank. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Yep. We can extract a little bit more. But, with a good auction, you shouldn't be doing vendor bids. Yeah. Because you have competition. A lot of people bidding, but if you need it, it's there.

Yeah. If it's only one bidder and it's the auctioneer, it's almost like you're doing a private treaty where, instead of writing it down on a contract, they're going, I want to pay $1 million. Well, the seller wants 

above 

$1.2. All right, I'll go $1.3. Seller wants $1.4.

If, I've only got one bidder, I explain it to them like that and how we're going to negotiate it almost like a private treaty deal right now. But live. That's a good 

analogy. Well, it's what it is, isn't it? You're correct. It's exactly 

what it is. 

Before we wrap up, just one more thing I wanted to touch on that

I think you do surprisingly well. 'cause I guess as we know, Raising the Bar, we're looking at storytelling excellence. Mm-hmm. I watch you every Saturday religiously. I've got you on my Facebook. You put the prices you're getting for your auctions. Yep. And. It seems to me a lot of the time, Sally wanted $1.1 million,

yep, yep. We got her $1.2 million. Yep. At auction. Yep. And then the next weekend, Bruce selling his house. He wanted $1.2 to $1.3. We got him $1.35. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Man, I see that happen pretty much every weekend. Like what? Tell me more, tell me more. Because you, you are one of the only agents I see consistently doing this on social media.

Mm-hmm. So, props to you. 

Thank you. I mean, following 

this for 

years. Thank you, George. A lot of hard work in the background, going back to what we spoke about last time, letterbox dropping and you do one letterbox drops, not going to really be powerful. Yeah. I'll grab, put in the bin, but if they get a letterbox drop every week for 10 years from the same guy who's selling everything in the area, they're, you're probably going to get a call eventually when they want to sell.

It's the same thing with my social media. That's like my letterbox drop. Every week. And it's a little story. They're real stories. People love storytelling. Yeah. Like stories sell, tell, stories sell. Yeah. These are, these are real clients. They're real houses. Yeah. Real houses, real stories. Yep. I've got so many case, I call 'em case studies.

I've got so many case studies. It's a little story about what happened behind the scenes, what they may have wanted, what their situation is. Yeah. I've gotten a lot of business from social media over the years. Is it 

Facebook? Facebook for you. It's Facebook, isn't it?

Yeah, Facebook. Yeah. Because a lot of people knock Facebook saying that it's dying. Nah, mate. Somehow my eyeballs seem to see what you are putting on Facebook. And I'd say me personally, and probably a lot of people in our age group are spending a lot more time on Instagram 

of course. So, you know, they're going to be, potential buyers are going to be potential sellers of Instagram and Facebook.

I I do both I think, but I'm seeing you on 

Facebook. So what you're doing is working there. Yeah. 

And it, it has worked and it's a story about what's happened and anyone that's reading that, like you're seeing it once, third time, fifth time, 50th time going, okay, we're going to sell hundredth

time. We're going to get this guy to come and have a look at our place and see what he thinks. And, and I've had that , I have that weekly, yeah, I have that weekly, I guess that opens 

the door, doesn't it? And allows you to then go and pitch or it's a what? The listing.

What do you listing presentation. Listing presentation. Yeah. Yeah. Where you go and tell 'em what you're all about. Yep. Give you a chance to win that business and add value for them. Yeah. 

As much as we tell 'em what we're about, it's about them and their situation and how we can help them and service them and get them a great outcome.

And, and their real estate goals - could be buying, could be selling, could be acquiring more real estate, could be developing. 

Yeah. True. You know, a lot of people are chopping up blocks Yeah. Chopping up blocks. Yeah. 

So yeah. In anything. Always here to add value. 

Guys, if you haven't heard the other episode we did with Kos, that was on becoming a suburb specialist and what that looks like.

So if you haven't heard that one, that's where we chat a bit more about that. It's worth a listen. Last time we spoke about a golden nugget. 

Yeah. 

And I know I'm putting you on the spot again. 

Yeah. 

What comes to mind that someone that's been listening to this, let's call them new to the real estate game.

Yep. If my memory serves me correctly, you were talking about mentorship last time. Yep. Yep. And maybe consistency. Yep. Yep. What else you got for us, Kos? 

You know what, I actually do have something. We're talking about auctions, and if you're an agent and you've just, you know, got into the game and you're not doing auctions, your first few, you're going to stuff them up.

You, you're going to get better and better. My first few auctions I remember there was no one, like we spoke about, there was no one there. It was just me, the seller, and the auctioneer. Wow. And, you know, reality set in very quickly. I thought, I don't want this happening again. 'cause you feel guilty. You feel shit.

You feel shit. You, you feel shit. Yeah. I did a, i I did a lot of training. I got flown to Sydney. Oh, 

wow. I, 

I spent with some time with some of the biggest agents from the McGrath, even though I'm LJ Hooker. True. Okay. Other offices. Yeah. Mentors. I did a lot of YouTube videos research. And what I realised is the more you do, the better you become in it.

So if you are not doing it and you want to get into doing that process 'cause you know, that's becoming more of a norm these days, dip your toe in and you might stuff up a few and most agents then back out and go, no, this is, I can't do this. Scared. It's a different process. I don't like it.

Yep. 

Stick at it. And as you get a few runs on the board, you go, hang on, you'll get better and better and better. And it's to the point now where I have just one buyer rock up, I'm like, I'm probably going to sell it on the day. Yeah. Wow. Because when I start, I'm, oh my God, I've going to have 20 registered bidders.

I'm not going to sell it. Yeah. So you get better. And that's just with experience, so. So reps just do it. Reps and just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Don't be scared. 

Yeah. 

Cool. 

Thanks Kos. 

Thanks, Georgie.