A luxury Perth home has become the highest value property ever sold through the online auction platform, Openn, with a winning bid of $4,727,776.
Caro Cunningham from Mint Real Estate was the agent behind the record-breaking sale and says her sellers of 142A Victoria Avenue, Dalkeith are beyond happy with the result.
“Selling in 20 days and above reserve price was an amazing outcome," she said. "They were completely blown away."
Over the course of three weeks, the property attracted five qualified buyers who competed via the Openn Negotiation platform to push the price up from a healthy opening bid of $3,500,000.
On the night of the final bidding stage, the seller, Di Linfoot, sat with Caro Cunningham at the Mint Real Estate Claremont office to watch it all unfold live.
“The atmosphere in the office on the auction night — electric. Full of emotion and hope, with a wonderful auctioneer at the helm,” said Mrs Linfoot.
As the bidding got underway, it quickly came down to two buyers matching each other bid-for-bid, with the winning buyer needing only one word to describe the experience – “exciting”.
The final sale price was a huge surprise for Mrs Linfoot, who had never sold using Openn.
“The sale far exceeded the price we expected and we believe this would never have been achieved with the usual sale or auction systems,” said Mrs Linfoot.
The experience was vastly different to the last time she found herself selling, describing it as, “A drawn-out process which was tedious and painful.”
With the expertise of the Mint Real Estate Claremont team and the latest technology at their fingertips, Mrs Linfoot was able to shorten her campaign significantly.
“The whole time-frame from making the decision to sell and achieving that was no more than 5 to 6 weeks,” she said.
After the sale was finalised, Caro Cunningham, the selling agent, reached out to the buyers who missed out to get their thoughts on the process.
“While obviously disappointed that they were unsuccessful in securing the property, the buyers all said they were happy to let it go once it went beyond what they were prepared to pay.
“It’s very different to what often happens in a private treaty sale scenario where you have upset buyers who say, ‘I would have paid more’ when you tell them what it sold for,” she said. “That just doesn’t happen in an Openn Negotiation.”
What is Openn?
Openn is an online bidding platform and process that allows qualified buyers to openly negotiate on price, with the advantage of knowing exactly how many competing buyers there are.
It brings together the best elements of traditional sales methods and blends them into a totally fair, transparent and stress-free sales process for all parties.
All buyers in an Openn Negotiation must be pre-contracted and approved by the seller before participating. A requirement Caro Cunningham says completely removes the possibility of dummy bidding and helps separate the serious buyers from those that are ‘just looking’.
“It gives my sellers confidence and certainty on how their property is performing as they know up-front exactly how many buyers are placing legally binding bids.
“On the other hand, buyers like it because they know all buyers are real, they can see all the bids and are given every opportunity to improve their price — and not miss out because they were left in the dark,” said Mrs Cunningham.
Over the last two years, Caro Cunningham and the team at Mint Real Estate Claremont have sold more than 80 properties using this sales method, with a clearance rate of 95 per cent — quite an incredible feat given WA’s tough market conditions.
“This system is working wonders and I’m looking forward to helping more clients experience amazing results using Openn Negotiation,” she said.