Episode 125 | Innovation in auctioning: how are we selling now? | Damien Cooley, Cooley Auctions

How have auctions adapted to restrictions and is this paving the way for a new normal?

Damien Cooley is one of Australia's most well known auctioneers and is managing director of Cooley Auctions and the founder of AuctionNow, which has been critical in transitioning the real estate market from in-person to online. In today’s episode, we discuss how buyers and sellers have reacted to the restrictions, the technology that has helped transition the market, and eye-opening data, including clearance rates, region-specific data and utilisation of online tools.

Here’s what we cover:

• How did the Covid-19 restrictions affect auctions?

• With the technology existing for years, how many auctions were run online?

• Who cancelled their auctions first? 

• How does AuctionNow work with different state legislation?

• How has the clearance rate changed over the last quarter?

• Has online auction now been normalised?

• Why did certain regions not adapt to online auctions?

• What happened to the vendors who were caught in March?

• Despite the market being tough, will there always be scarce property for sale?

• Since open houses are back on, will they go back to the norm?

• Why is this the best time to get back in the market?

• Is it off market or is it pre-market

• How are banks pulling finance from clients days before settlement?

• How to get ahead in auctions?

MENTIONED EPISODES:
Episode 1 | Simon Russell
Episode 2 | Damien Cooley
Episode 115 | Eliza Owen

GUEST LINKS:
Cooley Auctions
AuctionNow
Cooley Index

HOST LINKS:
Looking for a Sydney Buyers Agent? www.gooddeeds.com.au
Work with Veronica: info@gooddeeds.com.au 

Looking for a Mortgage Broker? www.wealthful.com.au
Work with Chris: hello@wealthful.com.au

Buy the book - AUCTION READY How to buy property at auction even though you’re scared s#!tless: www.getauctionready.com.au
Use the coupon ELEPHANT for your 30% listener discount.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: 
Please note that this has been transcribed by half-human-half-robot, so brace yourself for typos and the odd bit of weirdness…
This episode was recorded on 13 May, 2020.

Veronica Morgan: You're listening to the elephant in the room property podcast where the big things that never get talked about actually get talked about. I'm Veronica Morgan real estate agent buyer's agent cohost of Foxtel's location, location, location Australia and author of a new book called auction ready, how to buy property at auction. Even though you're scared shitless.

Chris Bates: And I'm Chris Bates, financial planner, mortgage broker, and together we're going to uncover who's really making the decisions when you buy property.

Veronica Morgan: Don't forget that you can access the transcript for this episode on the website as well as download our free full or forecast to report which experts can you trust to get it right. The elephant in the room.com.edu.

Chris Bates: Please stick around for this week's elephant rider bootcamp and we have a cracking Dumbo of the week coming up.

Chris Bates: Before we get started. Everything we talk about on this podcast is generally nature and should never be considered to be personal financial advice. If you're looking to get advice, please seek the help of a licensed financial advisor or buyer's agent. They will tailor and document their advice to your personal circumstances. Now let's get cracking.

Veronica Morgan: If you've been listening to this podcast from the very beginning, you'll know that our first episode was with a behavioral scientist who went to an auction and subsequently unpacked 12 ways in which the auctioneer, the agent and the auction process itself influenced buyers mostly without them even being aware they're being affected. In our second episode, we quizzed arguably Australia's best known auctioneer, Damien Cooley, about how conscious he is about engaging the subconscious minds of buyers during each and every auction he performs. Without giving anything away, I can say that he is extremely aware of what he's doing. And if you ever bid at auction without first listening to that episode, you are mad today. Damien has joined us again and where are you going to get the dirt on how online auctions perform during the coronavirus shutdown period and whether that will indeed be the future of property auctions moving forward. Welcome Damien. Thank you for joining us.

Damien Cooley: Thanks for Veronica. Thanks Chris. Thanks for having me on the show again.

Chris Bates: No, our pleasure. Your episodes, definitely one of the episodes where we get really good feedback and a bit of a light bulb moment. So and it was all the way back in episode two, I two or three I think. So we've done 120 episodes now, so it was a long time ago, but obviously the last few months have been a bit challenging for everyone really. But also I guess for yourself and your businesses and how you've had to evolve or make changes. So how did the covert sort of situation affect the options and moving to online and how did that all go?

Damien Cooley: Yeah, great question. We, I guess for us as a business, three, four years ago we started actually an online auction platform, which is known as auction. Now. We actually initially called it cooling out. It was going to be a product that we, that we had just for Cooley auctions and it was just going to be used for outsides technology. That was, I guess to some degree ahead of its time in that we really wanted to digitize the way that we handled our auction data. We wanted to be able to give buyers the ability to, to watch our options from anywhere in the world on any device. We wanted the ability for those buyers to be able to engage with us on auction day. And by that I mean actually place their bids digitally online, again, from anywhere in the world on any device. So not just the ability for people to tune in and bid, but we also wanted to have digital records of our auctions.

Damien Cooley: We wanted to be able to have footage kept of our auctions for compliance. We wanted to be able to make sure that we recorded our reserve prices, how many bitters we had registered, but what properties were selling for. We'd basically just wanted a digital record of the whole auction process. So we started building, that was four years ago now. And very quickly we learned that, Hey, this was going to cost a lot more than I initially thought. And we can't call this thing Cooley auction calling now because no one's going to use it. We need to, we need to call it auction now. So that was the whole reasoning behind the brand switch to auction. Now it was, it was designed to be a platform that would be used by the industry and, and for the industry to get a benefit out of this technology, which was I guess PropTech for, for the auction space.

Damien Cooley: So how that, how that played out during this covert period was that, you know, we, we'd been using this platform solid for two years. And what I mean by that is that every auction that Callie auctions had done two years prior to to Covid was, was run in conjunction with the online technology. So we were using auction now for a couple of years before. This whole pandemic came about and we were using it in such a way that we were broadcasting our auctions live streaming them. We didn't have that many buyers actually bidding online. Most of the buyers were still bidding by the telephone. Well, most buyers were either being in person. We did have some buyers bidding online. I guess for us as a business when when 219 pandemic really rung true in our industry where auctions actually and banned from calling an auction out of front of the house or banned from doing an auction in the room as we'd previously known it, we were really well positioned with the technology at our fingertips because we've been using this for the past two years now.

Damien Cooley: Right. And it was a little bit different. We, we had to move away from having people in front of us to exclusively conducting online auctions, but we were very, very well positioned to use this tech. I think it's also probably important to just know that when we build this tech, we didn't really build it with, with it being in mind that we were never, we weren't going to have people standing in front of us, built it with the, with the thought process that it would be used in conjunction with the live auction. And whilst we, whilst we do believe and I still believe that there is an absolute place for online auctions I think that the benefit of the benefit of a live auction certainly I, my opinion in many respects adds a lot of value to the end result than just exclusively doing that property online. And I guess we're going to probably get into a little bit of that as the podcast goes on.

Chris Bates: So through that process where they literally banned auctions and then you had to do all sorts of online sort of virtual auctions, did you notice any major change or many shortfalls that you kind of wish you were back on site? And you've kind of realized that if the tension isn't going to get the best result for your vendors compared to having that onsite auction?

Damien Cooley: Yeah, the first thing that we noticed was was how many properties actually got canceled. And how many properties got basically pulled off the market, withdrawn postponed. To give you an example on the, the week before he stopped traditionally is one of the biggest auction weeks of the year. As the Saturday before Easter, we had over a hundred auctions on the Tuesday night in our auction rooms in double Bay, we had 47 properties booked in for auction.

Damien Cooley: And if I asked you to guess how many properties actually ended up going ahead that night it'd be you wouldn't get it. So I'm just going to tell you what it is. We had one auction go ahead. Out of 47 properties that were booked in,

Veronica Morgan: Who was canceling the agent or the vendor or a combination of both?

Damien Cooley: I think there was a lot of, a lot of sellers that were very nervous about what was ahead. I think there were a lot of vendors that were nervous about how buyers were going to react to the fact that auctions were banned. I think that a lot of vendors didn't understand that we could still run our auction online. I also think that a lot of agents didn't understand that. I think that when people heard the words auctions of band, it was almost like we're taking our property off the market straightaway and we're either moving to a private treaty sale campaign or we're just actually taking it off the market.

Damien Cooley: So I think that shock was significant. When, when that announcement was made, my sign started blowing up straightaway and then it was, it was on, I remember it was late at night and I basically sat on the computer tools of the wee hours of the morning emailing all of our clients that had auctions booked in our database of agents about how, what the next steps were going to be and how we're going to solve the issues that we had at hand. And that was that we do have a solution and our solution is auction now. And, and we've been using this for the past two years and we understand the platform. In fact, that if there was any auction business that was online auction ready, it was us and we were, we were the, in my opinion, we were the best position to handle it.

Damien Cooley: Now, even though that we were able to make those comments and those statements, even our own clients were still very hesitant and about dying to auction. And if the reality is if the agent is hesitant about going to auction, they're not going to be able to convince the seller that it's the right way to go. And as a result, we had loads of properties that were just being canceled off straight off the bat. So I guess to answer your question, I'm curious about, you know, what are the things that we learned about getting the best result for the seller is that there is no quitting, there is no doubt that being in front of a buyer and being in front of a vendor is both the buyer and the vendor every opportunity to make my opinion a better decision. Is there a place for online auctions?

Damien Cooley: Absolutely. Do online auctions work? Yes, of course they do. We were, we were very, very successfully selling properties under the online auction process. And what we also discovered was the ability really to, to run two different types of online auctions and w what we branded, these were our live online auction. And the second option was a buy now auction and the live online auction was where the auctioneer physically calls the calls, the auction and the buyers all bead online. And the buyer has all been under the same terms and conditions of auction as they would have otherwise. A big boy. Now auction is more of like a timed online auction system where you still have an auctioneer that actually oversees the auction. But what they bought, what they do is that the buyer is able to place beans as they wish. With those bids being accepted every time. And the auction can literally be open for one week, two weeks, four weeks, it could be open for 15 minutes. The agent and the auctioneer is in control over the increments and the minimum bid increments. But we, we've really now identified two different types of online auctions and now that we're actually able to, well certainly in new Wales, go back onto the street and go back into the auction rooms. The auction now platform for us will again run in conjunction with our live auctions.

Veronica Morgan: So you're the auction now platform is more the live version of online auction, correct? Not so much the buy now or did you do both within the auction now platform?

Damien Cooley: Yep. So both sit within the auction now platform. The buy now option has, has recently been branded that name and what we call it a buy now auction for, for two reasons. Firstly, we believe that we believe that the buy auction will really clean up the whole selling prior of a normal auction. And what I mean is what I mean by that is I think when a buyer makes an offer prior to auction, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, in my opinion, potential like underhanded conversations that go on between the person making the offer and the agent. You know, the offer is usually conditional upon, Hey, I'm going to make this offer, but I don't want you to tell anyone what it is or the agent's trying to extract an offer out of the buyer. It could be for a number of reasons.

Damien Cooley: One, they might be the only buyer. Two, they might be a standout buyer. We see all that. It's the agent is able to convert a live auction to a buy now auction when it's going to sell prior that it's, it's a much more transparent way for all guys to compete prior to auction and I'll just explain it how that works. What that means is that if a buyer is going to make an offer and it's converted to a buy now option, the buyer makes their offer on the platform. Then what happens is the agent says, goes to all the other buyers and says, look, if there is no better bid by 5:00 PM on Friday, whatever the date is or any date, all the time, the property will be sold. And what that means is that every other buyer is able to see what that offer is.

Damien Cooley: And then if I want to make a camera offer, they can and it's very, very transparent what we really want to want to bring to the whole auction process, which is one of the, one of the reasons we started auction now was to really give everybody a lot more confidence in the process. There'd be a lot more transparency in the process. And if a borrower is able to see what somebody else or the offer is somebody else has made, and at least I know that that is a genuine offer that's been made. And you know what, if I come to complete, they can, you know, if they don't want to compete, I don't have to. And if no better bit is placed by, by X time on X date, then the property will be sold. You know,

Veronica Morgan: I can immediately see that agents who are dealing with a situation where they've only got one buyer or where that buyer is a standout and they put it on the auction. Oh, sorry, the bid, the buy now platform, that buyer would have the to back out, wouldn't they? If nobody took them on or nobody else?

Damien Cooley: Well, what that buy does is that when they, when they make that offer, there's two things that happen. Firstly, because it is an option, they don't need to waive any cooling off rights because it actually is, it is a genuine auction. So they can make, they can make their offer on the platform.

Veronica Morgan: So does that mean that their offer is like a bid?

Damien Cooley: It's functional, correct. Yep.

Veronica Morgan: Right. Wow. So they're committed if, if their offer is accepted. Right. Okay. Interesting. Okay.

Damien Cooley: It is, it is a bead. Now you'd have to look at each individual state's legislation as to whether they are entitled to retract that bit or not. Yes. So, for example, in new South Wales, a buyer is entitled to retract their bid, but we, we, from a buyer's point of view, when they placed their bid, they have to confirm that their bid is being placed. I think it would be incredibly unlikely that a buyer would retract their bid. 

Veronica Morgan: Oh, I would think, I would think that if a buyer, because I know you know, the two scenarios you mentioned earlier about where an agent is going to try to, to extract, we call it manufacturer, but extract a bid from a buyer prior to auction. I can see, I can see that they would never go into this process cause the agent wouldn't like the idea, the transparency. They wouldn't like that buyer to, to know that there's nobody else there. But I guess it would be a good thing for a buyer to insist on, okay, I'll make this offer, but I'm insisting on using that platform.

Damien Cooley: Yeah. Well, you know I dunno, I tend to maybe disagree in the sense that the buyers don't know who else is regular. This is one of the advantages I think that we certainly have seen coming back to Chris's question earlier as well, one of the advantages that we've actually seen in the online auctions is that the buyers can see each other, the buyers, they don't know how many other registered bidders there are. Sorry.

Veronica Morgan: So is that an advantage for the vendor?

Damien Cooley: Well, I think so. You know, I think that it is an advantage for the vendor and I think that it's an advantage for the auctioneer because no way using, when we were running these live online auctions exclusively online, I was using a lot of language, like, look to all of the online bidders. It's incredibly important that you beat in your bid. Right now I've only had one online dinner, so that's what I didn't know that we're the only buyer. But, but, but I was able to say and do whatever I liked because nobody could see each other. So I do think that that was an advantage to the vendor in saying that that language didn't often work for Hanukkah, so I still wasn't able to get to bed. So I thought it was an advantage, but you know what, maybe it wasn't.

Veronica Morgan: It's funny actually because of course now we'll be releasing this episode in a few weeks, but we've only just had auctions back on or live auctions or just back on in new South Wales. But with restrictions and, and that is, you're not going to get the, the neighborhood you know, the free show on a Saturday afternoon, are you, because we can't have spectators, really. It's only registered bidders are there. So there's no smoke and mirrors in terms of pretending there's more registered bidders and there are, or the agent can't go and talk generally to, to one of the neighbors and ask a couple of nice questions about where they bought their shoes from and get a couple of nods and some of that smoke and mirrors going on. So auctions from now on until the end of covert restrictions are going to be very transparent, aren't they?

Damien Cooley: Yeah. Well look, it's, it's something that we've promoted for a long time, but I mean, just to cover off a couple of those points, the first thing is that it's not legislate. I mean this is, we're talking about new South Wales here, but it's not legislation that only registered bidders can be there. So you are allowed to have spectators at the auction. But it is, we'd feel that it's best practice to just say registered bidders are only invited now, only had one auction on Saturday, just gone. And we did have a few spectators there or we had, we had two registered bidders in-person at the auction and we had three registered bidders online. So it still is challenging for the bidders in person to know who's online and how many people are online. And it's, it's probably a little bit challenging also for the bidders bidding online to get the feel for what's happening at the live auction.

Damien Cooley: So, you know, it's still early days as to how, how this will how this will play out. But we had three online bidders and two in person. I think the big thing is, well this is what I learned in Coburn. What I learned in Kobe was when you're making a decision to spend, you know, a significant amount of money, in my opinion, it's always best to be present in front of the agent in front of the auctioneer to be able to have a one on one conversation and make decisions at that time in person. However, if you can't be there, reading online is a very, very good solution and it certainly gives you the ability to compete under the same terms and conditions as someone in person. And to give you an example of that now, platform auction now has absolutely zero time delay between the time that someone is watching and places a bit online too to what someone is actually bidding in person at the auction. Whereas a lot of the other platforms, and I won't name any of them, but a lot of the other platforms actually have time delays they use, they use other forms of live streaming technology that is not streamed in real time and you can have anywhere up to a three to five second time delay. Whereas our platform is to, is streamed in real time. And the moment you pray plus breasts play speed, that big comes through to the iPad where the auctioneer's assistant is holding and the auction he can see that bid.

Chris Bates: In terms of prior behavior through that process was there any auctions that you can see on the online where you felt that you actually got a really surprised result, whether it was, you know, a massively high than you expected or some different funny beating that you know, you've done thousands and thousands of auctions, so just things where you think, wow, this is actually in a real changing kind of buy auction behavior where you know, let's say two people just went straight to their limits really fast. Or was there anything like that that you just thought, wow, this is a really different option because this is online and it's potentially got a, a massively changed result?

Damien Cooley: We saw, we saw a lot of hesitancy to place the first bid. And in fact, during the period of, of the last month in, in April, we, I, so to give you an example, right, we went from, we went from a 78% clearance rate in February, so we're talking Sydney Metro, but then 78% in February, March was 61% and April was 36%. Okay. So we went from what we use a vendor's bid often to start the bidding. And depending on the state of the market, we find that when the market's more challenged, we use the vendor bid more often. So in February 22nd, 20% of our auction started with the vendors paid out in April 36% of our auction started with the vendor's bid. So what we really noticed was that there was a lot of hesitancy to start the auctions with the online, with the online only.

Damien Cooley: Auctions and buyers were nervous about starting to hide down, nervous about about starting at all stupid bits coming in. Like, you know, for example, the agent might've been guiding 800,000 and you know, we had some peanuts putting bids in at 200,000. So, you know, we, we just, we very quickly learned that what was happening is the auctioneer's assistant was saying, Damien, I've got a bit of 200,000 and I just like, I didn't even want to hear that number because the moment that somebody even heard that number, it was so ridiculous that it was putting a negative feel to the auction. So we learned that we had to not announce the number. So what we decided to do was say, okay, every property has a floor price and the floor price is kind of like an internal number that the auctioneer and the auctioneer, his assistant and the agent has faded.

Damien Cooley: We're guiding 800,000. For example, we might have a floor price at seven 50 and if somebody's been less and the online, I didn't want you to tell me what the number was. I just wanted you to say to me, Damien, we've got to be below our full price. And then I would say to them online is folks, we've been guiding 800 I really need to see a bid at seven 50 or better as an opening bit. Now if a bid didn't come in, we'd then use the vendor's bid. So by behavior was that it was difficult to get the first bid. We'd start the bid with the vendors bid. And then it was often quite challenging to be Frank to actually then get a bit above that. But what we did find is that once we got that first bit above that vendor speed, we often got a second and then got a third.

Damien Cooley: And the, I guess the commercial reality of probably any auction is that is you've got multiple bitters and then you know, five, six, seven and more usually going to sell the property. And it would ordinarily should sell for a reasonably good price. If you've only got one bidder or two bidders, it's obviously going to be a lot more challenging and it was even more challenging online. And I would have otherwise have been in person. Now there were some auctions that had huge results price as well above their reserve. But I look at those options and most of those options had, you know, anywhere, anywhere around 10 15 buyers in one property had 27 online bidders. So, you know, those properties, they're just going to sell well regardless of whether you're doing it online or in person. And as an auctioneer, I was able to be a lot more bullish about the bins that I was taking.

Damien Cooley: And, and by that I was able to say, look, we're only taking $50,000 beads and we had plenty of bitters trying to bid 10,000, 5,000. And I was just projecting them saying, nuts gotta be 50. And I knew that because we had so many beers, someone would agree and some of them would be 50. So that's just the commercial reality of having a lot of interest in a property. Now, if I only had two bidders, I obviously couldn't be as bullish with my bidding tactics and I'd have to, I'd have to almost agree to take a lower increment. We, we certainly saw in the early stages of the online auctions, a lot of auctioneers just taking almost any bid that was put forward. And I think that that it really was like a learning process for the auctioneer's as well to understand, you know what, this is an online auction, but I'm still an auctioneer here. Don't forget about being an auctioneer. I can still reject to beat, but you've got to do it in such a way that I think was a little bit, a little bit or understanding then then maybe is only says you may have been if you were doing it on site.

Veronica Morgan: One of the things I like about you guys is that you come out with your Cooley index every month. So, and it looks at more than just the clearance rate. And obviously it's just the properties that you auction. But it does, it looks at, you know, how many Satta would the vendor bid, how many sold over reserve, how many registered bidders were there, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of that data is very interesting comparing year on year. But the problem is, I guess it's hard to sort of work out specifically how much of this is about the platform itself or how much of this behavior is, is because of the reticence to use the platform or the reticence to actually beat online versus how much was a reaction or a response to the lack of certainty in the marketplace? I mean, you've got people making silly offers of 200,000, a few quoting eight for instance, but there are opportunities out there. I think everything's going to fall off a cliff and this is their time to clean up. So that's sort of got nothing to do with the auction format has, it has got to do with just the general uncertainty in the marketplace.

Damien Cooley: Yeah, no, good point. And you're absolutely right. What we saw, what we saw or have seen over the past, you know, six to eight weeks is a lot of nervousness about market conditions. There have been plenty of buyers and what I call smart money that has been snapping up properties over this period because they have actually seen a lot of value in, in buying immediately rather than waiting. There's been a lot of people that have believed that the market is going to bounce back. And I guess diff, what I really noticed during this time Veronica, was that different markets reacted very differently. And when I say markets, I'm talking about geographically. For example, I found the Eastern suburbs of Sydney didn't adapt to the whole online process as well as the inner West of Sydney and really unbelievably inner West buyers, even Western suburbs buyers.

Damien Cooley: I found they, they were a lot, a lot more adaptable to the new way of selling than, than the conservative, I guess Eastern suburbs buyer. We also did different age demographics, maybe had played a bit of an influence on this. We found that, you know, young savvy buyers were really cool about jumping on their iPhone and placing bids online where, you know, that sort of old, older, more conservative, a landowner in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney was less likely to want to tune in and watch by their Dell computer at home and connection was safe and secure where it was really interesting to see how different different markets adapted and different price ranges. You know, I think that that, that, that property or average around the like the million dollar Mark 800,000, 600,000, you know, online auctions bidding online really cool. That market actually is held in my opinion, is held up quite well. The top end of the market I think has probably taken a little bit more of a hit and I think that that's just because they're one a little bit more conservative and too, you know, maybe they've been affected by stock market crashes and swings of ups and downs a little bit more than the, the everyday buyer.

Veronica Morgan: Have you measured how many were withdrawn and looked at the same sort of geography to say, right, well there were more properties withdrawn in the Eastern suburbs for instance than they were in the inner West or the Western suburbs. Because I've noticed myself in the East that a lot of people are just holding out for their price and the agents are saying, look, you know, my minerals was, aren't panicking, they're not budging. So it's a very different attitude. So they're like, Oh, well we're not going to get our price, so we'll take it off the market. It has you seen any correlation there?

Damien Cooley: Well, what we saw through the recovery period was to answer your question is no, I haven't, I haven't tracked that specific information, but I could literally the click of a few buttons and I could work it out. But what we saw was a lot of properties get withdrawn. And that comment from agents is certainly what I'm hearing. Also nothing that really tells us is that, you know, some people don't need to sell and they're selling because for, because they're already the trading up. Well they trading down, but I feel like, you know, if I don't get the price or close to the price that I'm after where, okay to stay here for a few more years and you know what, we'll just change our plans and we'll sit tight. What we say is that everybody does have a reason for selling and if they're on the market, they're on the market for a reason. It's about, I guess tapping into that foundation as to why they're selling. And, and they're questions that by should ask of agents, you know, why the owner is selling. I think that that's a reasonable question to ask and I guess it's up to the agent to disclose reason.

Veronica Morgan: Yeah. You don't get much, get a lot of insight for most agents on that one.

Damien Cooley: Yeah. But look, I think that there are, there are lots of indoors right now that, that brightly don't have to sell. And if they don't get their price, they won't sell. But my response to that is that as I just said, they're on the market for a reason. So they, they will make the decision to sell eventually if their motivation is strong enough and it's just a matter of working out that motivation.

Veronica Morgan: So what about as with any sort of sharp change in the market, there's always those owners that had their, they were mid campaign, you know, there's people that started their campaign with one set of circumstances and then in the end of the campaign, completely different. I always feel quite sorry for those vendors who just really lucked out when it came to timing. How have you found the responses I guess, of of agents on us is going away from online auctions as a, as a platform. But however you found, I guess there's been a bit of a mixed bag in terms of how those properties have sold. Have you sort of got any insights into what people, the sorts of reactions you've seen from, from agents and vendors have been really caught out because they were accidentally on the P on the market the wrong time?

Damien Cooley: Yeah. Well, you know, anyone who was on the market in in February and March was rightly thinking. The market's flying and it was, we, we had strong clearance rates. If you, if you were coming onto the market pre star, you know, you were gearing up for a really strong sale of good results. Buyers were buyers, activity was solid, were averaging, you know, really good number of registered bidders at each auction, the mood in the auction room strong. All of a sudden it fell off a cliff. And things really, when I say fell off a cliff, I'm talking about the mood, the mood in the room, the mood online changed rapidly. So like you say, those vendors that were midway through a campaign were kind of caught out in that what agents started doing and rear rightly or wrongly advising owners that what we know is, is that the market is going to change.

Damien Cooley: It's going to change quickly. There are a lot of a lot of economists suggesting that we could be saying anywhere up to a 30% price drop. And it was almost like, I wouldn't call it a scare tactic because all agents were doing is reporting on what other people were saying. And then, you know, economists who were making these statements that prices are gonna drop by so much that it was almost like vendors were almost frightened into taking a price that was almost frightened into taking a price and look, some of those prices are very happy to take others more. They might be disappointed they took them in the recent data that we've seen come out of the market, that the market actually hasn't fallen as anywhere near as much as what people initially thought it might. So I think it's been, it's been challenging for those owners who are being caught out. But as I say, like I want people buy and sell in the same market. So if they didn't sell as well as they would've hoped or they're, they're certainly hoping that they're going to be buying a lot better than they would have otherwise have bought. So

Veronica Morgan: There's no stock though on where.

Chris Bates: That is. A lot of people. Yeah cause the market was hot. The, you know, the, in terms of actually going to brokers and getting finance, a lot of them figured out that potentially they could buy before they sold. And so a lot did buy, you know, in say January or, and then they put their property on the market in fair to sell it, you know, in March, March. And then they bought in a hot market and then they had to potentially sell in this completely fear driven market. And we had quite a few clients that were stuck in that sort of position and luckily they all held on. And so and you know, one was actually going to sell a place, but low three's 3.1 he had an offer. And he was really scared and ended up selling it three weeks later for 3.4 which he was much, much happier with, even though it was nowhere near what he thought he was going to get.

Chris Bates: But you're right, it was, it was those people that were caught in sort of you know, late sort of March, sort of early April time. But did you say any auctions in that period, even though it was completely full of fear where you still had, you know, ridiculous competition on certain assets. And can you talk about an example of one of those properties that actually had that competition? Because I think it's just really interesting to say that even in a real deep fear times, there's still properties that have great competition.

Damien Cooley: Yes, we absolutely saw properties that had strong competition during that period. But one, one specific property that comes to my mind was a property that I auctioned on behalf of Kali is James Cowan was the agent. It was a property in PMR and it was it was a dilapidated couple of dwellings and it was that style of property. Frankly, Krista would sell well in any market now. And I think that's probably the key about answering that question is that good quality property will sell really well in any market, regardless of the market. I think any property that what, what I would say, how to see what's on it, maybe face the wrong way, maybe didn't have parking, maybe was, you know, not the, not the renovation that suited the average person looking in the market and those properties that didn't tick every box, they probably struggled more than others.

Damien Cooley: Buyers just have this unbelievable infatuation for a property that's unrenovated because they feel like they can add their, their own personal tastes and touches and add value to the property and it's going to be worth more. I often find that buyers end up playing a lot ball for a property that's unrenovated then sometimes what I could have bought a property that was renovated. And that's, those might, those properties sell well in any market. Then there was one in Bondai the, I think it might've been Ramsgate Avenue, the exact address just escapes me, but Scott Kennedy green from a graph conducted this auction and it was only a few weeks ago. And I believe that I have like 27 or 28 registered bidders. So very, very, very well.

Veronica Morgan: So we've heard about that, what everyone talks about. Agents are talking that one up, but they're ignoring all the others. But it does make me laugh because it does exactly illustrate that, that just because market is tough just because there's a lot of uncertainty and lack of confidence. Exactly that buyers can pinpoint a property that is scarce. It has all the ingredients that they want and they will fight for it. So it's it is good to see examples of that in this market.

Damien Cooley: If I can, I can give you plenty of examples of ones that didn't go so well.

Veronica Morgan: Yeah, that's the majority isn't it?

Damien Cooley: I think the big thing here that we've been speaking to our clients about and because this is people start talking about you know, auctions versus private treaty sales. What we've really been saying to a lot of people is, you know, yes the auction clearance rate is challenging environment. Yes, we've, we've seen clearance, right, for us down to as low as 36% I guess

Veronica Morgan: Hanging on yet. But doesn't that include your withdrawals?

Damien Cooley: Yeah, look, that includes, that includes a few things. So the way we measure an auction clearance, right is how many properties were booked in to go to auction on any given date. And then for the, for the sale side of it, it includes any property that sells prior and any property that sells on the date, on the net, on the, on the side of it, the properties that don't sell, it includes any property that's withdrawn and any property that doesn't sell on the day. So that is the what the true ref. The true auction clearance rate is determined by how many properties sell prior and sell on the day of the auction. Over the total number of properties booked that was supposed to go up on that date.

Veronica Morgan: And the problem with looking at a 30 odd percent clearance rate is that the, those properties were withdrawn, not because of where they were withdrawn because of a a market condition that is caused from a health crisis. And it's very unusual. And also they probably wouldn't have been withdrawn had auctions not been banned or maybe a much smaller amount number would have been withdrawn.

Damien Cooley: Absolutely, absolutely they wouldn't have. But we often say like auctions all about days on market because an auction campaign is 28 days. Generally we say, well, you know, if the auction clearance rate is, is X or how many private tree sales sell within that same timeframe. So you know, the fact that the fact that the auction clearance right will be slightly lower if it's not necessarily the method of sale that brings that about, it's more that it's just a market conditions at any given time in the market.

Chris Bates: So we've had you know, CoreLogic have kind of shown that new listings are at all time lows but also our total listings. Because people are taking properties off the market are at all time lows as well and we're talking who knows, like, you know, maybe 30, 40% under what, you know, you'd expect for this time of year. Compared to previous, just in the last five years, have you been speaking to agents and saying that, you know, agents are now that they can go back to auctions now that they can now do open homes. That's really just all that we're waiting for to potentially start to list properties back on the market or have you just or is it kind of, that's not really the case and we're still likely to see very low listing numbers from what you're hearing?

Damien Cooley: There, there is absolutely no doubt that everybody has been waiting to run an open for inspection and conduct an auction. I think that the period has really identified the challenge for a buyer that way you rely on an agent running by appointment inspections. If is, if a buyer has inspected a property and they make an offer and come onto the property a week later, but you like it, you know, th that property might be getting sold on the, on that afternoon and the agent doesn't want to give you the time to go and show you through because they're about to do a deal and sell it. Whereas the beauty of an auction actually enables all buyers to bid and go and inspect the property, I should say, to go and inspect the property during an open for inspection period. So in that open for inspection period, everyone's sort of inspected onto the same terms, but when you're relying on people to show you through property, it's a little bit more challenging.

Damien Cooley: So the answer that is yes, everyone's been waiting to just run an open for inspection as we know it and an auction as we know it. To give you an example of the turnaround. From the moment it was announced in new South Wales that we could get back in and conduct auctions. We had 70 auctions booked in that week and not, not for that week, but for future auctions. You know, it's, it's now Tuesday. We've had another 30 auctions booked in this week they'll ask in two days. So where we're seeing more properties getting booked in now admittedly some of these properties that are getting booked in a properties that are actually getting rescheduled. So some of those properties Ranita were taken off the market, for example, are actually now potentially coming back on the market or something that was withdrawn, is now being re optioned.

Damien Cooley: We're seeing a bit of that. I know I, I can tell you that every single agent is having a conversation with any potential seller right now saying there has never been a better time to get on the market because I'm leading against less property and every agent is assigned to every potential window. You do want to wait till spring where everyone's going to come on the market or do you want to come on the market now when there's less competition, you might potentially get a better result. That's the conversation that's happening in the living rooms right now.

Chris Bates: When you say that the market's probably, Veronica, you've probably saying this, that obviously an increase of sellers willing to, you know, not go through with a marketing spend and, you know, potentially just test the market and see if they can get what they want. So you're probably seeing a lot more off markets, but then if they are actually a motivated seller now, they're probably going to get back onto the market again. So, you know, and is that what you're saying Veronica, in terms of, you know, the sellers and willing to try their luck?

Veronica Morgan: Well, a lot of if markets are really pre markets, so they're just really dipping their toe in the water. And and also it's a very much an agent pitch to get business by putting forward their database. And when you've got a fearful, you know, you've got a fair amount of fear out there, then potential vendors, I think you will great. If I don't have to spend any money then I don't feel like I'm risking anything and I'm not exposing my property. So any agent that rocks in there and says, Oh look, I've got these great databases, go two weeks and I'll show you, I'll show all those people. And if not, then we show usually an auction campaign. So it's, it's common practice now. And so we are that, that is that, that has been, Oh well that's really been the last probably 12 months this year. Certainly there's been more true off markets in the last month or so. When I say true, that's when there's nothing. There's no floor plan, no photos, no nothing, which is really quite annoying when you have to make an appointment to see a property that you have nothing.

Veronica Morgan: So we go on video at for our clients and now we'll, we'll probably see that ease off a little bit, I'd think have, what do you think Damien?

Damien Cooley: Yeah, look, the, the off market sale has always been quite a funny model in my opinion for the exact reason that you just said that a lot of agents caught properties off market, but then it's all over social media and they've got photos and there's public lands and marketing. To me I completely agree with you that really is a pre-market launch rather than loft market launch. I think a true off market is something that actually does do, like you say, have no, no marketing whatsoever. I, I think that, I think an off market and off market sale does a couple of things. I think the first thing it does is it puts a bit of doubt in the buyer's mind is am I paying too much? And I also think that it gives a vendor like Veronica some, some some confidence around sticking to what sometimes can be at an inflated price.

Damien Cooley: I think coming to market is the best way for the owner to determine what market value is. And also I think it's the best way for the buyer to compete under, under a transparent environment. Internet, I've been forum. That's why I'm such a strong believer in auction because I believe that it's the most transparent way to sell. And it's the fairest way for awhile now that they're paying market value. It's the fairest buy for an owner get knocked down. You and I just think it's fair. I think what, what the whole off market off market transaction does is that it just, it really gives the owner a bit more confidence in hanging onto that. And I think to a certain degree, some buyers going to a negotiation with the unknown of, of, you know, am I actually kind too much for this?

Chris Bates: Or B, you know, how do I determine what this is actually worth? So you said something before you said, what did I, what I've learned from covert or Karen or whatever you wanna call it. You know, what are some of the other things that you've learned about the property market and potentially, you know, the dynamics of buy behavior over this sort of two months. And what do you think is going to shift in terms of how's it gonna affect what we want and what we desire and property? Well, markets are driven by really my view two things. So the biggest thing that a market is driven by is confidence. And when there's confidence in the market, the market is rising. And when there's no confidence in the market, the market's falling. Really markets are driven by is the ability to borrow money. And if people can borrow money, then they're, and they've got confidence and that's the perfect recipe for a boom market.

Damien Cooley: Now the borrowing of the money is the unknown because what we've, what we've really noticed over the, over the past, you know, six, eight weeks is that banks have tightened up the way, the way that they're, that they check up on buyers. Like I've even heard scenarios recently, and you might have some Intel on this where, where banks have even been ringing ringing mortgage brokers and buyers like a couple of days before settlement. And if I heard one the other day where a buyer had lost a lost their job like literally a few days before settlement and the bank found out about that and now they'd already purchased the property, the deposit and the bank pulled the finance of them. Literally the removal us was putting the furniture in the, in the truck. So there are situations where you like if buyers can borrow and there's confidence, then the market's gotten, in my opinion, the market would boom and I think the market has every right to come out of a period where it's got incredibly low interest rates. If the banks are lending and confidence comes back, then we'll see strong price growth, but if unemployment goes really high, whatever I'm saying it's going to happen. If banks put a bit of a stranglehold on buyers and they don't lend money, then I think that we may find ourselves in a challenging market. These are the unknowns, the crystal balls that I guess we don't have, but if there's confidence in banks land, then the market will grow.

Veronica Morgan: There's also the flip side of that confidence in that vendors have to have confidence. They're gonna get their price and then they'll list their property. So if you find that vendors who don't have to sell let's see, simply don't list and this will be geographical to old imagine. Then that's gonna hold prices as well. Just so she lack of transactions.

Damien Cooley: Yeah, look, it will, I think, I think the bounce back that we're going to see once, you know, all States and territories are allowed to run an open for inspection and do auctions again, you will see a bit of a jump in the clearance, right? We already saw that new in Sydney on the weekend and I think that all it was is really going to take you some good news stories coming out of the media of, of a bit of confidence playing back. That will actually give more buyers confidence to to purchase and the pendulum will swing and and when, once that pendulum starts swinging, the more, more vendors will say, okay, bit of confidence back in the market. That gives me confidence to list my home. And I think that the wheels will start turning. I don't think that it's going to take long before those wheels start turning and start turning in a positive way. If we see continued positive news articles being written in the papers and, and seen online,

Veronica Morgan: Hey, got a question for you. How is it, is there any difference auctioning a pack of toilet paper to auctioning auctioning a house?

Damien Cooley: Well, they told us like there's a lot more fun. I must say that that was, that was quite hilarious. I said I said, the JQ who works with me, I said, you know what? I've got an idea. We're going to get a roll of toilet paper or, or I think it was a 24 pack or a 36 pack. But you only go down to double Bay. And just for a bit of fun, we're going to, we're going to live stream this, we're going to auction off this toilet paper. Now I'll put, I'll put an announcement on this. I did make a couple of phone calls to make sure I had a few buyers down there. I rang a couple of a couple of clients and said, this is what I'm doing. Get down there and make sure you put a beat in cause I don't want to look like an idiot not sell this. So we went down to double.

Veronica Morgan: You're allowed to do that when you got to all that paper.

Damien Cooley: Absolutely. So we went down there and we sold the we sold the toilet paper for a thousand dollars and I matched it. And we did, we donated the money to charities and look, it was a bit of fun, but I must check and see how many views that got on Facebook. It was, it was certainly my most entertaining and biggest reach,

Veronica Morgan: Good PR, much better PR than actually selling property. Even. Sorry, I wait the box. So there you go. Wow. That's, that's a big goal.

Chris Bates: Every week we hear incredible stories of the dumb things, property buyers do dumb things. It ended up costing a whole lot of money and or a whole lot of stress mistakes that can be avoided. Please. Damien, can you give us an example of a property Dumbo, we can all learn what not to do from these stories.

Damien Cooley: Yes, I've got a property Dumbo and it relates to online auctions and and and being in person and bidding online. We, when somebody is bidding in-person at an auction, that means they're actually bidding in-person. Someone's being online, that means they're placing their bids online. One of my frustrations in the past, well, you know, over the past before the auctions were actually banned and now that we're able to do auctions, buyers, they're getting mixed up when they're preregistering for auctions or whether they're being in person or they're bidding online, it's really simple. One says beat in person and one says bid online. It's about getting it right.

Damien Cooley: The funny part about it is that there actually is a difference to the way that they register and we collect more information from an online data. For example, we make, we make the online data, put their credit card details in and that's just like a security over them being an online dinner a week. We have seen a little bit of fraud creeping into online auctions where people have been trying to register for properties and the agent doesn't know who they are. So we've been really vet checking every single buyer who's an online bidder. So it's something that we've really been careful of.

Veronica Morgan: Well we didn't even talk about was actually the security aspect of it. There's a whole other podcast in that I gather.

Chris Bates: Um so one final question, Dana, can you just hear your thoughts? Cause I think one of the benefits of being an auctioneer and you know, you are, you're on the ground, which a lot of people, property commentators and not actually out and about seeing options and not actually seeing what buyers are doing and what properties are hot and my properties in, not a hot, not hot. I think agents also sometimes have that problem because they only see what's happening in the Eastern suburbs or the low and all the beaches. Or, you know, the Western suburbs and so they're not really getting that full market market exposure. So I feel like someone like yourself and someone who is doing auctions all over the place can get that real understanding of what the agents are saying. Are you noticing though that in terms of what the questions and what buyers are wanting a shifting in terms of the space, you know, green space over say views or you know, studies or you know, things that, you know, people at buyers actually changing their preferences in terms of the type of properties that they love.

Damien Cooley: I think what the coven period is really highlighted is everybody's ability to, or need to actually like live life and, and get the best out of that. Their home. Everyone would love more space if I can afford it. I guess everybody would love to have a two bedroom unit instead of a one bedroom unit if I can afford it. So affordability comes, comes to the really the forefront here. Do people want more space? Do people want that extra study that people want, the ability to be able to work from home? Of course. I think that that, that is certainly been heightened during this period and it will be questions that people ask themselves after spending literally eight weeks in their homes exclusively in their homes. I think you're going to see a lot at some people out of the society. You know, the house I live in, I want to move, I want a bigger house.

Damien Cooley: Or like you say, I want to be near the park or whatever. We need to be all, Hey, you know what? I actually want a small place. I want to live closer to the city. I want to move closer to mom and dad. Or you know, I'll actually want that rural escape. I want that, that little farm we've always been talking about down the Southern Highlands or in the Hunter Valley or wherever it might be. You know, I want that escape. So I think that that conversation is happening right now in the living rooms of any families that, that we might start to see that change come over. You know, over the next six to 12 months, they might already be starting to see that change. It's definitely on the conversation table right now.

Chris Bates: It's interesting you say that because you're right, like the, the, the people are not looking to enter the market in terms of say first time buyers with the people in their homes right now. I've had to deal with the frustrations of whether it's not got something that's, you know, allowing them to live comfortably through this period. And having to really question that. And you know, affordability is one thing that I, but if you, for example, you know, can only spend 800 and that can get you a wall bed, maybe you say, well I'll, I'll move a bit further out. You know, like, so

Damien Cooley: Yeah, you're going to sleep, you're going to say, and that, that, that point exactly is the reason why. I mean, I do a lot of auctions in Newcastle and a lot of auctions in Boulevard and my absolutely saying buyers who are in that sort of around that million dollar price bracket moving to the likes of Newcastle, moving to the likes of Woodinville purely on an affordability basis for bang for your buck. We're seeing more people move out of Sydney as prices. Just I guess out of reach.

Chris Bates: Yeah, yeah. And then I guess the benefit they can potentially work from home. So maybe Newcastle fucked her up there. It's maybe a little bit too far away from home. You know, to commute five days or a central coast, you could do it, but and even two days a week from Newcastle's, a bit of a slog. If you want to kick your Sydney job, but maybe central coast Wollongong definitely decide and there's only going to be these buyers shifts, but also the owners a property you're going to potentially consider moving and this, this type of transactions is, is going to change after covert, I think.

Veronica Morgan: I think we need to get a futurist on the show to work out, you know, to get an idea about how people's thinking changes and their priorities. Cause I think you're right, Damien, and I've spoken to a couple of agents from just outside of Sydney, so within say two hour commute. And there's been increasing inquiry apparently from people who are thinking, you know what, you know, now we've had this time at home, away from restaurants, cafes, all the things that we normally have in the city. Yeah. It might be able to, I could live rurally. So yeah, it'd be very interesting to see if there's a bit of a migration.

Damien Cooley: Two hours is probably the time frame. I guess the people really would love to have a home within, within Sydney. You know, another thing that people have really noticed is that how much money they're probably saved by not going out to restaurants, but I'm not going and spending all their money at shops and whatnot. So there's been, whilst it's been a challenging, in some respects financially for businesses, the probably being quite significant savings for right. And otherwise,

Veronica Morgan: Yes. It's not all bad.

Damien Cooley: Really appreciate your time Damien. It's a pleasure, Chris. Thanks for having me. Thanks Veronica.

Veronica Morgan: Thank you so much for coming on and giving those insights in terms of what's been happening with the offsite auctions or the online auctions and just sharing with us your insights into buyer behavior and vendor behavior as well. So it'd be interesting to see what happens moving forward. Hopefully we can all behave ourselves and we don't have to go back under tighter restrictions.

Damien Cooley: Oh, absolutely. Look forward to the day that we can return to what know as our normal and that's being able to travel get out and about enjoy friends and family's company and return to some form of normality.

Chris Bates: We want to make you a better elephant rider. And this week's alpha rider training is,

Veronica Morgan: Well, let's talk about the need to have a strategy regardless of how you're going to be bidding for a property. If you're going to be bidding online or offline, you still need to actually do the same preparation that you need to do regardless of the actual method of sale. And that is that you have to a, once, I'm assuming that you've chosen the right property and it is the right property for you and you've gone through all of that process yourself, you've got to work out what it's worth and you've got to work out what it's worth to you. And they are two very different things and certainly there's no, no substitute for doing your own research into what that property should be selling for in the, in the current market.

Veronica Morgan: Now obviously when there's market uncertainty, you're trying to work out, well, would it be a bargain or will it be competitive? So you have to think to yourself, well, how good is this property? Damien talked about some of the properties that still got enormous competition and when this is what we bang on about all the time and this podcast is when you go for an eighth grade property, that's the sort of property that does get competition regardless of market conditions. And so you've gotta be aware of that. There's no point going to an auction thinking you're going to get a bargain just because it's, you know, covert time. If it's a good property and it's going to be competitive, you need to be prepared and really had to have thought through what their property is worth and that that takes research into recent sales.

Veronica Morgan: But also you need to be very, very clear on what your limit is and what your walk away prices. And that's partly around how uniquely that property suits your needs, but also around, you know, your actual borrowing capacity and affordability. And so there's risks around that at well, heightened risks around that at the moment as well. So being prepared and really thinking through where you're prepared to go to at an auction is really, really essential. Now I actually cover all of this in my book, which is called auction ready, how to buy property at auction even though you're scared shitless. And I have to say that if you're going online at all, you have to be even more shit scared shitless than normal because lack of transparency and that's what Damien was talking about. So that's even more reason for you to be very, very clear on your, your, on the value of the property. But also on your game plan and also listeners, I should just put a little plug in here that listeners can get a copy of the book with a 30% discount for listeners. So if you go to get auction ready.com today you and use the code elephant, you can get the 30% off. Love that plug. Veronica, one interesting thing, I haven't read your book, which I should read your book in terms of have you covered that? I had you, you know, in times

Chris Bates: When there's a very low stock, which we have to admit now it's very low stock. How do you factor that into what your walkaway price is? Because you know, if there's lots of potential, even if you want to scarce, probably there still could be a quite a few of them on the market that are ticking all your boxes. How do you factoring low supply into your walk away price?

Veronica Morgan: Well, the reality is if there's low supply or high supplier, you shouldn't be pushing yourself for the wrong property. So a lot of people when there's a very low supply, they, they think, Oh my God, I've got to buy anything because otherwise I'm never going to find the Romeo anything. And so that's a real, real failure because you buy the wrong property and you're stuck with it, or you find yourself in a costly exercise of getting out of it and into the, into the right property. So regardless of whether there's lots of stock or no stock focus on the right property, now you've got to be realistic about that. You've gotta be realistic that you can actually afford the right property for you in the area that you want. And so that pricing research process that I that I talk about in the book is really important because you need to actually, by looking at recent sales, even if you go out 12 months when there might've been more stock on the market, if there's been nothing in the last 12 months, so the sold that you would have bought, then, you know, you need to push yourself for whatever property you found now.

Veronica Morgan: But if there's been three, four, five, six, whatever, and you would have bought any of them or you could have bought any of them, then you think where you don't have to push yourself quite so hard now even though there's not a lot of stuck around because it's really probable that something will come up soon enough.

Chris Bates: Do you find that a lot of clients however, get a bit too optimistic or pessimistic because they look at past sales without actually having gone through those properties?

Veronica Morgan: They never really know whether they were the right fit or not. Well, I think this is when I say look at parcels, I look at online photos and floor plans and videos and whatever they've got. And it is, I would say you'd never buy a property only seeing it online. And so therefore there is a bit of a weakness when you are just looking at an online listing as something that's sold in terms of truly comparing it, if you haven't physically seen it. But this is one of the dangers I guess, of the current market because it's harder to see property and even open houses have got restricted numbers and they're discouraging people from look from doing their research. Really. So it is, it is a lot tougher to make those calls. And really nothing substitutes a good amount of time. Well actually something does substitute it using a good buyer's agent who actually knows the area and has actually seen a lot of these properties. That's one way to get around it because, you know, I know in my business we, we have at a lot of the properties that have sold recently so we can actually help our clients see them in context. But it is quite difficult in the current market for an individual buyer to do all that research and leg work to get themselves ready.

Chris Bates: And that's even more reasonable. And even the have to force the agent and you know, and, and you know, whatever they need to do to get their research, you know, because you know, you can't be going into the market in say spring or six months time. And go, well, it was a bit more difficult for me to get into look at a property because, you know, et cetera. I think you've got to be still out there doing your research and trying to get to as many open homes as you can. Because you know that you're going to need that research, you know, and especially if it does get, you know, there is still low supply. Confidence is back a little bit and you get competition again. You know, you're going to want to know those references.

Veronica Morgan: It's, it's almost impossible to get the right price if you haven't been doing your research. Buyers will either under estimate, and I hear that a lot. Oh, there's no way I wouldn't pay that, et cetera, et cetera. Somebody else does come along and pay that, you know, or they overestimate it because they're just not actively in the market themselves and they love it. And so they can't understand why anybody was, wouldn't want to pay that same price they would send. And you often see it goes in both directions. It's very rare that a buyer gets it spot on without any knowledge. I mean, if they've really well researched in the area, they, you know, buyers become the local expert, you know, if they've been doing it long enough. But yeah, without that background, it's really, really, really fraught.

Chris Bates: Yeah, exactly. Are those clients, they're putting their personal preferences and what they value in a house or a property. You know, as what's drives us to value. But what drives us value is the market, you know, and you know, and what other people love about the house and what they value it is what matters. And it's very hard when you think you're looking at properties because you know, you're the one buying it. So you're basing everything about what you like and what you don't like. And the reality is you're going to live things more than sometimes the market. And and the other way around you're going to say, look, it's, you know, I don't value that at being on the best street as much as the market. You know, I'm happy to live a little bit closer to the main road or whatever it is. So yeah, it's interesting kind of watching. It's very hard to value that property on what the market value is, because there's always a bit of personal preference in there that over on devalues it.