Mitch Peereboom, Head Auctioneer at Harcourts Queensland, was named the runner-up. Five finalists competed in challenging conditions in front of a sold-out crowd at the Brisbane Powerhouse on Friday, 28 July.
โOf course I was hoping to win, but to think that Iโve won this title four times now is unbelievable,โ Mr Nickerson said.
โItโs an absolute honour to win in a room of such high-quality competitors and I congratulate the worthy runner-up, Mitch Peereboom, who delivered a fantastic auction call under pressure.โ
It is the first time that an auctioneer has won the State’s most prestigious award four times.
“The win feels like a recognition of hard work as well as the time and effort that you put in to develop your craft,” Mr Nickerson said.
“It’s a recognition, too, that agents and vendors can have confidence that they’re working with someone that does treat the profession seriously and works hard to always give them the very best representation.”
Mr Nickerson established Apollo Auctions in Brisbane in 2013 and calls auctions across Australia and New Zealand.
“It has been a lot of hard work. In the past few years I have done a lot of training trips to really focus on what my point of difference is and to understand who I am as an auctioneer,” he said.
“There are two key attributes you have to have to be a really good auctioneer. One is you have to be good with numbers and the second one is you have to have the ability to react quickly to what’s going on around you and produce that in a way that’s not offensive to buyers.”
REIQ CEO Antonia Mercorella congratulated Justin Nickerson and Mitch Peereboom on their achievements.
โAuctioneering is such a specialised skill and requires such a disciplined approach that to become the best of the best requires extraordinary determination and commitment,โ Ms Mercorella said.
โCongratulations to all the finalists on their success and especially to Justin Nickerson and Mitch Peereboom. Youโve done yourselves proud, gentlemen.โ
Due to his REIQ Auctioneer of the Year win last year Justin Nickerson, along with Matthew Condon, will represent the REIQ at the Australasian Auctioneer of the Year event in Adelaide this September.
The finalists for REIQ Auctioneer of the Year 2018:
- David Holmes: National Auction Manager, LJ Hooker
- Gordon MacDonald: Director, The Auction Group
- Justin Nickerson: Director, Apollo Auctions
- Mitch Peereboom: Head Auctioneer, Harcourts Queensland
- Mark Te Whare: Auctioneer, Apollo Auctions
- Matt Condon: The Auction Group
The judges:
- Mark MacCabe, MacCabe Real Estate
- Matt Lancashire, Ray White New Farm
- Wally Boydell, Boydell Property Agents
- James Curtain, Place Bulimba
- Dane Atherton, Harcourts Coastal