The chant, the pace, the raised voice and the falling hammer are the visible parts of the job, but seasoned auctioneer, success coach and founder of The SOLD Network, Andy Reid insists they are also the least important. What determines outcomes happens long before the auction begins, and often well after it ends.
“The auction call is only about ten per cent of a massive game,” Andy says.
“The rest is judgement, preparation, and understanding what’s actually happening in the room.”
It is a view shaped by years of calling auctions across different property types, price points and market conditions, and it is why Andy believes auctioneering is one of the most misunderstood skills in real estate.
For agents curious about becoming auctioneers, and for newcomers considering whether the craft is right for them, Andy’s advice is this: strip it back to fundamentals.
Learn the rules properly, understand people under pressure and drop ego early.
Your job is not to just sell under the hammer
Andy challenges one of the industry’s most deeply held assumptions from the outset.
“My job on the day is not to drop the hammer,” he says. “My job is to test the market.”
Whether a property sells during the auction or after it is secondary. What matters is whether the process extracts the best possible outcome for the seller.
This is why Andy places so much importance on removing fear from the result.
In his view, the strongest auctioneers and agents are not the ones chasing perfect clearance rates, but the ones who are comfortable with a pass-in when it serves the strategy.
“The best don’t fear a passing,” he says. “No process is a guarantee, and it shouldn’t be treated like one.”
Andy is sceptical of those who measure success purely by selling everything under the hammer.
He argues that a flawless clearance rate often signals money left on the table rather than mastery of the process.
Passing a property in is not failure. When handled correctly, it is simply another phase of negotiation. The problem arises when agents and auctioneers treat the auction as a public scorecard rather than a commercial tool.
Ego is the enemy of good decisions
According to Andy, one of the biggest barriers to effective auctioneering has nothing to do with technical skill.
It is fear.
Fear of public judgement. Fear of looking wrong. Fear that a non-sale reflects poorly on the agent or auctioneer rather than the market.
“If you don’t sell it under the hammer, people think they look bad,” Andy says. “That thinking drives poor behaviour.”
When ego takes over, decisions are rushed. Pressure is applied in the wrong moments. Vendors are pushed instead of guided. Buyers sense it immediately.
He believes perspective matters more than experience. You do not need decades in the industry to understand that an auction is not about you.
“The deal isn’t about us,” he says. “Our world keeps turning whether it sells or not. It’s the owners and buyers whose lives are being affected.”
Letting go of the need to look impressive changes everything, including how an auctioneer communicates with vendors, manages a pass-in, and reads the room under pressure.
Do you need to be an agent to become an auctioneer
The answer depends on where you practise.
Andy explains that some states, including Victoria, require auctioneers to hold an agent’s qualification.
Others allow people from outside real estate to enter the craft.
He knows auctioneers who are actors, voice coaches and even sports commentators.
But he is clear about the trade-off.
If you have not been involved in sales, negotiations and client management, you may struggle with the emotional context that surrounds an auction.
“There’s calling an auction, and there’s understanding the game as it’s being played,” Andy says.
That understanding comes from empathy, particularly towards sellers who feel their sense of control slipping away.
Much of the anxiety at auction stems from owners feeling powerless.
Andy sees one of his key roles as restoring that sense of agency through clarity, calm communication and obvious command of the process.
The traits Andy looks for in a successful auctioneer
When Andy assesses someone with auctioneering ambitions, he is not looking for volume or bravado.
The first thing he looks for is self-awareness.
“You need to know who you are,” he says. “Auctioneering amplifies your personality. Whatever you are, it gets louder.”
Standing in front of a crowd is public judgement in real time. If you are uncomfortable with yourself, that discomfort shows.
The next trait is spontaneity. Andy values people who can think quickly, hold a conversation on almost anything, and add value through curiosity or insight.
Then there is mental arithmetic, which Andy treats as non-negotiable.
“If you can’t count, you shouldn’t be doing it in public,” he says.
Numbers underpin credibility. Hesitation with maths creates uncertainty, and uncertainty spreads quickly in a crowd.
Learn the rules before you chase style
Andy’s training philosophy is deliberately unglamorous.
Before you worry about personality or performance, you must be functionally correct.
That means understanding auction rules, legal frameworks and procedures so thoroughly that they become instinctive.
“You have to operate within the rules without thinking about them,” Andy says. “Only then can you focus on people.”
The advantage of this stage is its clarity. You either know the rules, or you do not.
Once that foundation is in place, style becomes a choice rather than a crutch.
How to practise without damaging confidence
For new auctioneers, the hardest question is how to practise safely.
Andy’s first recommendation is immersion.
Watch auctions constantly. Watch different auctioneers. Watch different styles.
Study how auctions unfold rather than copying a single performer.
Most auctions, he says, fall into three scenarios. Ones with strong competition that move quickly.
Ones with limited bidding that require careful handling. And ones that stall and need to be managed into negotiation.
Recognising which scenario you are in, and when it shifts, is where outcomes are made or lost.
“These are sliding-door moments,” Andy says. “You get them right, and the difference can be hundreds of thousands.”
He also recommends training the brain under pressure. Numerical training apps help, but he prefers exercises that replicate stress.
One of his preferred drills involves a deck of cards. Remove one card unseen, then time how long it takes to count and total the remaining cards, knowing the full deck adds to 340.
By the end, you should be able to identify the missing card.
The timer matters. Pressure changes how the brain performs.
“The best auctioneers can do it in under a minute,” Andy says.
The aim is not speed for its own sake, but pattern recognition under time constraints.
Know the property better than anyone in the crowd
He is openly critical of auctioneers who turn up on the day, glance around the house and rely on a standard routine.
“You can’t think clearly about people if you’re worried about the property.”
The night before every auction, Andy studies the home in detail. School zones, amenities, floorplans, likely buyer appeal and future potential all matter.
His motivation is simple. He does not want to be asked a basic question he cannot answer in front of a crowd.
If an auctioneer hesitates publicly, credibility suffers. Not just theirs, but the agent’s and the property’s.
“When credibility drops, buyers back off,” Andy says.
This is even more important now, with more professional buyer advocates attending auctions.
Part of their job is to probe for weakness.
Andy recalls auctioning an older CBD apartment with high owners’ corporation fees and a major special levy.
A buyer attempted to destabilise the room by calling out a question about strata costs.
Andy had the answer immediately. The moment passed without damage.
Preparation prevents those moments from becoming problems.
Andy’s framework for getting started
If you were starting from scratch, he would suggest a simple order of priorities.
- Learn the rules until they are instinctive
- Train mental maths under pressure
- Watch auctions obsessively and learn the patterns
- Read people, not just bids
- Know the property inside out
- Let go of the need to look impressive
Auctioneering, he explains, is not about performance. It is about preparation and judgement under scrutiny.
