Award-winning auctioneer Andy Reid joins Apollo Auctions team

Melburnian Andy Reid is the latest star recruit to the growing Apollo Auctions team with the award-winning auctioneer keen to shake things up in the auction capital of the nation.

Andy has previously won the REB Auctioneer of the Year in 2022, the REIV Senior Auctioneer of the Year and the REIV President’s Award for service and support to the industry in 2020 and has been honing his auctioneer craft for more a decade. He says while Melbourne might be seen as the auction hotspot of the nation, in reality it is lagging behind other cities in many ways.

“In order for people to take you seriously, you need to first take yourself seriously, including being a dedicated and professional auctioneer as your chosen career,” he says.

“I want to take delivery to the next level because I value the craft of auctioneering so much. Many people in Victoria don’t know the difference between an average in-house auctioneer who calls auctions a couple of times a month and someone who has dedicated their career to the craft.

“There’s a distinct difference between a part-time auctioneer and someone whose sole focus is on being the best auctioneer they can on a full-time basis.” For real estate agents, the quality of the auctioneer they engage will also be paramount to their future business success, Andy says.

“The chances of agents securing more listings increases with the calibre of the
auctioneer that they use,” he says.

“Auctioneers are an agent’s more public advertisement to potential vendors, so it stands to reason that if they want to win more listings, they need to ensure they are working with an auctioneer who will secure them the best results on auction day.”

Andy says it’s not common knowledge that other jurisdictions – such as Queensland where Apollo Auctions is headquartered – has a more evolved independent auctioneer sector, including the compulsory registration of bidders, which he hopes will one day become a reality in Victoria, too.

“Auctions are supposed to be a truly transparent process, but in order to do that, you
need to have bidder registration because then there is transparency in terms of who the
competitors are,” he says.

“The fact that you as an agent or auctioneer know how many registrations you have on auction day and how much serious interest you have is going to inform your strategy on the day, which is hard to do in Victoria since bidder registration is not required.”

Andy says that the increase in the use of independent and experienced career auctioneers across the nation has proved to be a game-changer for sales agents and vendors alike.

“If we want to make sure that we are servicing our consumers to the best of our ability as an industry, we need to ensure that at each part of the process there is a level of expertise because the difference can be six figures – and that’s not even an exaggeration,” Andy says.

“Selling real estate is a team game which can fail at the final hurdle if the auctioneer doesn’t have the skill-level nor the experience to get it over the line. “If we were to equate it to a game of footy, an auctioneer is your full forward because it takes many other players to get the ball up the pitch to me in a position where I’ve got a shot.

“About 90 per cent of the process is everybody else, which is great. You get 90 per cent of the way there but the reason why the full forward generally makes the headlines is because if they don’t score a win, then all eyes are on them. “So, although I’m the last part in the process, when it comes to property auctions, I’m the one that everybody’s watching on the day, so, you want the most skilled and experienced auction practitioner on your team before the final whistle blows.”