2009 James Home Ratings Selling Agent of the Year
Heather Elder/Rae Tomlinson. We felt these two ladies really took it up to the blokes in 2009. All year, their favoured patch - the Gasgoine Estate in Malvern East – was a tricky one: mostly hot but sometimes very cool. All year they kept you on your toes but did so in a professional manner, highlighted by Trinian St Prahran. This was an extremely difficult circumstance where the vendor wanted $2.5 million and we would have thought buyers in isolation thought $2 million, maybe $2.1 million, as, after all, it was a townhouse (brilliant one though) on a small block in Trinian St Prahran. Anyway, Heather maintained her line of buyer interest at $2 million and vendor expectation at $2.5 million, when it would have been very, very tempting to lie to buyers with a $2 million-plus quote. The auction was run as many Marshall White auctions are as a Bid to Negotiate with no reserve and this was stated during the auction. Sold at $2.5 million under the hammer – one big step for the vendor; one even bigger step for our industry showing that truth in quoting, even in very difficult circumstances, can work for the seller. Their focus on their area, the vendor representation and their communications meant we felt they were our agents of the year for 2009.
2009 Best Technical Auctioneering Performance: Iain Carmichael – Murray St, Armadale
James Auction Report: We all like watching an Iain Carmichael auction and this one kept us (crowd 80) interested as well; although the old guy did drag it out a bit towards the end. Opening real bid of $3.3 million. Then a prolonged begging routine before a vendor bid of $3.55 million, which I immediately sniggered at, as I thought it too courageous. But what do I know? A few seconds later, a second bidder gets it to $3.6 million and, after a pass-in to sell at more than $3.7 million. All credit to Andrew McCann and Richard McKinnon, who obviously knew their buyers."
This is two years in a row and people think we have a love-crush on Iain Carmichael and, I’m sorry, we do when it comes to auctioneering. Bidding at hundreds of auctions each year, we get to see some brilliant operators and some appalling efforts. Iain, without doubt, in a tough auction (with good back-up from quality agents who have supplied him with the information) has few peers (maybe John Bongiorno, Gerald Delany, Rod Morley and Alastair Craig). Taking apart the above auction, his actions were well timed, brave and, in the end, profitable for this client. It takes a special skill to get a good price, in fact, a very good price, when you have little to work with. I think the above five have special skills that many sellers do not consider at agent selection time.
2009 Most Powerful Auctioneering Performance: John Bongiorno – Alfred St, Kew
James Auction Report: Huge crowd saw John Bongiorno takes bids from six bidders till it sold under the hammer at $4.85 million. This was John Bongiorno at his powerful best, warming the crowd up with his usual, slightly long speeches and then ripping into the situation. Few auctioneers can take the heat and give it back in such a professional manner. Landmark property and sale.
John Bongiorno is a brilliant auctioneer under the pump – this is, in part, due to “his” Marshall White agents preparing the ground, but it is also in part due to his presence that no amount of training can give you. This auction above was extremely hot and powerful and made more so by the way John conducted it.
2009 Longest Auction – James Tostevin – 13 Woodlands Avenue, Camberwell
James Auction Report: For theatre, this could go down as one of the best auctions of 2009. In front of around 200 people, James Tostevin opened this on a vendor bid of $1.6 million and five bidders took this to a sale of in excess of $2.5 million. No need for referral to the vendor here. This auction was a marathon. Lasting almost one hour and causing James Tostevin to wipe his brow on more than one occasion.
We like James Tostevin who, while being a slightly controversial character, really is at the top of the tree in this industry. Brilliantly organised and full of useful information about what may happen (because he has done the hard yards – eg the hard work in asking questions of buyers), he predicted very accurately what would happen a few days before. Sure, he didn’t know it was going to take an hour or the final result would be quite so high but he did know there was incredibly strong interest.
2009 Most Consistent Auctioneer: Scott Patterson of Jellis Craig.
He is almost peerless with buyers around the $700,000 to $1.2 million mark in a hot market – with Phillip Kingston of Gary Peer his strongest rival. Scott just has a way at this level that works so well. A million dollars is a huge hurdle for many and Scott makes bidders feel very good about parting with their money. Scott is not so much a technical auctioneer as a feelings auctioneer.
2009 Most Improved Auctioneer: Mark Earle of Buxton.
We have seen Mark at a number of auctions this year and while, like most auctioneers, he still struggles at a very quiet auction, his patter, glovework and finish is fast approaching the equal of Sandringham legendary auctioneer Steve Tickell. 2010 will be an interesting year watching these two battle it out – well done Mark.
2009 Most Entertaining Auctioneer: Andrew Macmillan of Bennison Mackinnon / Mark Dayman of Marshall White.
On their day, we would pay money to watch both of these blokes in full flight – they are dead set funny (and very good). Happy bidders usually pay more. Our Christmas wish is that a vendor in 2010 will ask for a conjunctional auction between Marshall White and Bennison Mackinnon and these guys put on a double act auction. C’mon guys – we’ll give you both top billing.
2009 James Home Ratings Selling Agency Ethics Award: Bennison Mackinnon – Andrew McCann
For his/their efforts at transparency by publicly declaring their reserve is within the quote range. We truly hope Bennison Mackinnon continues with this practice. We will strongly support ethical and helpful communications between buyers and sellers as being in both parties’ best interests. The stance Bennison Mackinnon has taken is, in our mind, very good business practice and, in our opinion, will reward them going forward with increased market share. Their decision was a courageous one and long may it continue, for buyers’ and sellers’ sakes.
2009 Best “Up and Comer” Selling Agent: Maddie Kennedy of Marshall White – huge improvement from an already high base.
2009 Buyer Agent who made a difference: David Morrell of Morrell and Koren – he is an interesting cat and his media blitz on agent quoting really gave momentum to highlighting one of the two or three unsavoury parts of our great industry – under-quoting to buyers and over-quoting to sellers. Well done David – we do things differently but, in this instance, we stand 100 per cent side by side with you.
2009 Best Media Coverage: Neil Mitchell (3AW and Herald Sun) who really did try to understand the issues re quoting. We really enjoyed reading his articles and occasionally listening to his radio work and thought what he said made a lot of sense.
2009 Best Buyer Articles: Mark Armstrong’s series in the Sunday Age Domain section – insightful.
2009 Legend Award to Best Buyer Articles: Jan Somers – her books and magazine articles are spot on and she is a favorite and, in part, an inspiration for all at James Buyer Advocates and James Home ratings.
2009 Biggest Sale: Kay and Burton – Ross Savas. There is no doubt that Ross Savas and Kay and Burton cut the biggest deals and so they should; they are very, very good at their job. Perhaps, at times, this year their focus drifted as they took on Jeremy Fox/RT Edgar in bidding for business wars, evidenced at times by the higher than average pass-ins but, overall, Kay and Burton are an incredibly professional company who consistently produce the biggest results (in dollar terms at the top levels) and Ross Savas, with Mike and Gerald, is right at the top of the tree.
2009 consistently the most accurate agents: Campbell Cooney and Hodges. In fairness to the Inner Eastern agents, Bayside has been easier to read as it has been slower out of the blocks, but that is not to undervalue Campbell’s, and most at Hodges, accuracy when it comes to what will happen. We find their quoting and bidder interest predictions for the most part very accurate. Why? In Campbell’s case, although he is a principal, he actually gets out of his office and stands at homes and he makes phone calls and he rings buyers and asks them questions– it’s not rocket science.
Honorable mentions to Richard Earle of Jellis Craig and James Tostevin of Marshall White. The two most accurate readers of Boroondara auction situations with regards to buyer strength and reserves. Of course, they get a few wrong – so do we – but, overall, a very high standard of communication.
Stonnington – it was hard to find somebody who was accurate. In fairness, it was a very volatile market; and Justin Long and James Redfern were the best of a pretty inaccurate bunch in 2009. PS We don’t think we were a whole lot better at times. Armadale and the Gasgoine flummoxed us regularly.
2009 Most Improved Agency: JP Dixon Brighton. He’s gruff and he’s tough and he is downright uncool at times but there is no doubt he’s back in 2009. Jonathan Dixon’s JP Dixon Brighton, with Nick Johnstone, David Wilson and Chris Bevan, has really come back alive in 2009 and taken it right back up to Kay and Burton Brighton, who have been no slouches themselves this year. Honorable mention to Jellis Craig in Ivanhoe with David Oster. That million-dollar-plus market was sleepy hollow but is now dominated by Jellis Craig and all in a few short years.
2009 Best Selling Agent Initiative that Helps Buyers: The Jellis Craig White Board System for Chinese Buyers.
2009 Raspberry: Those agents who feel compelled to bulltish or say nothing on price. Sincerity is what buyers are after, not perfection. Give it your best shot and use your magic to convince us why we may have to pay more.
2009 Biggest Urban Myth: From our Market News in early 2009: “If we hear one more time that a private banker has spoken to a mate who tells him/her there are 200 houses in Toorak under order to be sold quietly, we’ll go ‘heeee’. It may be true but we just haven’t seen any sign of mass selling yet - some forced sales yes, but not large-scale mass mortgagee sales.”
2009 Most Professional Agency: John Bongiorno and James Connell’s Marshall White – based on all our dealings with all agents within a company. I know it looks like we are favouring them (two years in a row) and we do have issues with some of their quoting – but they are the best led, most cohesive and most professional agency to deal with across the board. Their closest challengers are Kay and Burton. On a personal point of view, we would like to thank all at Jellis Craig who have made a concerted effort to improve relationships with us this year and they too operate at a very high standard.