With the Australasian Auctioneer Championships commencing today, it is worth considering the qualities and high level of skill needed to win a state or territory REI competition, and then proceed to the Australia and New Zealand championship.

For those unfamiliar with the competition, the winner and runner up from New Zealand, and each state and territory in Australia from their respective REI competitions are then selected to compete at the annual "Austros" auctioneer contest. The auctions are staged, and the bidding sequence is the same for each.

The format commenced in 1993, and was held bi annually until 2005, after which the contest has been competed for annually. The list of winners from its 23 year history are all professional auctioneer practitioners, and masters of the auction call.

But is the competition template now out of date? Does the judging criteria and 15 minute time period for each contestant truly reflect what a property owner or real estate agent is seeking? Should the judges be removed from the real estate industry, and be from industries parallel to ours such as property lawyers, accountants, developers, builders and financiers?

When auctioneers talk shop, it is acknowledged that if you were to call an auction for a residential or commercial property (either on site or in room) to the the criteria and expectation of these competitions, the general public would be critical. The property descriptions used could not, and I believe should not be used in a real auction. 

With the recent introduction of live Facebook auctions streamed each Saturday, it is worth reading the hundreds and hundreds of comments from the 5,000 - 10,000 views each of these receive. The comments have a common theme - auctioneers who rate well are clearly spoken, provide a short welcome, terms of auction and contract summary, and then succinctly describe the context of the property's location and main points. These highly rated auctioneers are into the "numbers' in 3-5 minutes. Auctioneers that are slammed are the ones who overly describe, and simply take too long to commence the bidding sequence.

Perhaps the Auctioneer Championships should be live streamed on Facebook. I believe the comments from the viewing public would be harsh. Times have changed from 1996,and 2006. Let's now change the competition template to reflect the best auctioneer traits of this era.

See also:

Justin Nickerson reflects on his auctioneering win

Justin Nickerson is Australasian Auctioneer of 2016 

Auctioneering Competition kicks off in The Alice