Questions you should consider asking a property auctioneer when selling your home
Property auctions can seem like an appealing way to sell your home, because if several people want to buy your property then they might try to outbid each other by placing ever-increasing bids on your home, which will help you get a much higher sale price. However, if only one person is interested in your home at the auction you’ll have to settle for the minimum reserve price, which can often be less than you might actually want or need for the sale.
If you are thinking about using this method for selling your home, consider asking specific auction houses some or all of the below questions. They are written to help you get valuable insight into how a particular auctioneer works and their strategy for selling your home, and their answers should help you decide whether or not to use their services.
Auctioneers will do all of the hard work of selling your home, including marketing the listing for the property and hosting the auction. They will charge you commission for doing this work, so you should ask how much this will be so that you know before you sell. However, in some cases it’s possible that you could have the winning top bidder pay these costs instead.
Some property auction houses might specialise in only selling certain types of properties, for example only leasehold flats. If you ask this question you’ll get a good insight into the range of properties that a particular auctioneer has sold in the past, and if they’ve never sold a home like yours previously then they could struggle to generate interest in it from potential buyers.
Another important question that will help you to learn more about the auctioneer’s strategy for promoting your home before the sale takes place. You need to have assurances that the auctioneer has a solid plan for exactly how they will advertise your house or flats so that they are able to get as many people as possible interested in placing a bid on it.
Separate from asking an auctioneer about whether they have experience selling your specific type of property, this question will help you to learn more about the company’s track record more generally. If they have held a lot of auctions but have either failed to sell many homes or rarely get bids above the minimum reserve price you should not use their services.