If you want to be the guy who gets the most laughs – and snags the most properties - you’d do well to take a leaf out of Habeeb Urrahman’s book.
By the end of an afternoon of intense action at Ray White Auckland Central's auction room, the agent had earned the nickname of “Mr $100” last Thursday as he inched up bids in $100 increments on three city apartments and a carpark on behalf of his client, a phone bidder.
Occasionally, he went crazy and added $400, to amuse the room.
And while the $100 strategy earned Urrahman more than a few groans, it paid off for his buyer, who snaffled two of the apartments and the carpark, for a total spend of $660,800.
Start your property search
“The journey to buy real estate is a chore, but if you can add excitement, it takes the steam out and makes it a good experience,” Urrahman told OneRoof.
The agent estimated the unorthodox tactic also earned the vendors of the four properties, marketed by mother and daughter pair Judi and Michelle Yurak, another $10,000 to $30,000 apiece.
Urrahman said his client, a 30-year real estate veteran and cash buyer, tended to go against market trends. “They entered the market when everyone else paused, and they were very passive before Covid," he said.
“They started buying about six months ago and then really upped the ante in the last 10 weeks. I’d say we’ve spent about $4m in that time.”
Some 25 buyers crammed into the auction room on the rainy Thursday afternoon. More, like Urrahman's client, were bidding on the phone through their agents.
The energy in the room was a sign that confidence had returned to the inner city investor market, Ray White City Realty Group director Daniel Horrobin said.
Ray White auctioneer Ted Ingram sets a fast pace for the auctions on a rainy Thursday lunchtime. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Ingram reminds bidders that “cash and courage” is all that’s needed to secure a property. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Ingram managed a room of some 25 people, plus a swag of buyers bidding through agents on the phone. Photo / Fiona Goodall
The disappearance of the international student market at the beginning of 2020 hit the rental sector hard, but Horrobin said sales and rentals under the company’s property management division were on the up.
Most of the buyers at Thursday's auction looked to be well-heeled older boomers, but there was one young couple, complete with baby, who showed interest in the first couple of lots.
Ray White auctioneer Ted Ingram set a fast pace and reminded bidders that “cash and courage” was all that was needed to secure a property.
A leasehold one-bedroom apartment on Dockside Lane, off Beach Road, sold smartly for $105,000 to a phone bidder, but then interest really perked up for the next lots, an apartment in the Zest, on Nelson Street, and two apartments at the Volt on Queen Street.
Six properties, -five city apartments and a carpark - were up for auction at Ray White's city rooms. Photo / Fiona Goodall
A crowd of some 25 buyers braved the weather to bid at the lunchtime auction. Photo / Fiona Goodall
The hammer came on on the Zest unit at $270,000, more than 67 bids after it went on the market for $235,000. The result pleased the vendors, who were smiling as they received the congratulatory bottle of champagne as they headed for the door.
Urrahman’s cheeky $100 bids won his buyer the two apartments in the Volt block on upper Queen Street, one for $296,000, the second for $293,100.
But the room was left gasping when a carpark in the same block sold for $70,100 - 42 bids after it reached its on-market price of $53,000. “If there’s a dollar on the table, it needs to be there for the vendor,” said Urrahman.
Another investor, who dropped out early, told OneRoof that even though parks in this building were restricted to apartment owners in the block, any carpark was a good buy since Auckland Council had steadily cut back spaces around the city.
Ray White agent Habeeb Urrahman bettered other bids from the floor with $100 more from his client. Photo / Fiona Goodall
Only one lot passed in, an apartment in the refurbished heritage building above the Farmers store on Victoria Street. The one bid of $270,000 fell well short of the $300,000 Ingram needed to get it on the market. Records show the vendors had paid $252,000 for it eight years ago.
Ingram said bidders should feel encouraged by the amount of competition in the room, adding that this was the best buying in five years.
The sentiment was echoed by Ray White’s lead auctioneer, John Bowring, who told OneRoof that the company had kept a strong auction presence through 2022’s market change.
“In Auckland, across all our offices, 38% of properties still went to auction in the past month – and that’s very similar to the pattern since the start of the year. We're not seeing a lot of vendors doing off-market deals,” he said.
Auctioneer Ingram, with the auction manager for Ray White City Realty Group, Cameron Brain. Photo / Fiona Goodall.
“We have a 63% success rate under the hammer, but then there’s the sales post auction. People understand that there’s a process,” he said, adding that auctions gave vendors three chances to get a buyer through an offer during the pre-auction campaign, an unconditional buyer at auction, or a conditional buyer after auction.
