It began with a blunt reality check in 2021: “January: zero listings.” Five years on, McGrath’s Kon Stathopoulos is aiming to stage 200 auctions on one day, built on data, discipline, and a team model that treats every auction like a group effort.
Kon Stathopoulos, principal of McGrath West Group, which now encompasses seven offices, still remembers the moment the numbers stopped him cold.
He’d taken a hard look at the previous 12 months and thought something had been missed.
“Someone’s left out January here,” he recalls. But no one had left anything out.
“January… nothing. December… one.”
For a new franchisee trying to find his footing during the Covid pandemic, it was far more than a seasonal slowdown. It posed a genuine operational risk.
As he put it, with a mix of humour and urgency: “I’ll be broke if I don’t make these sales in January. I need to bring some money in.”
What followed became one of the more closely watched auction initiatives in Sydney: Super Saturday, a single-day auction event that has grown year after year and now sits at the centre of McGrath West Group’s business planning.
The insight: follow the audience, not the old calendar
John McGrath, founder and CEO of McGrath Estate Agents, says the early-year opportunity was hiding in plain sight, if you were willing to challenge the habit of treating January as a dead zone.
“I’ve always believed the best auctions were the first weekend of the year,” he said. “Buyers were fresh.
There was always multiple bidders.”
Then the data reinforced the instinct; John pointed to a familiar annual pattern in consumer behaviour: December cools, but the moment Christmas ends, attention returns.
“Realestate.com will tell you that Boxing Day is their biggest traffic day,” he said. “More people look at real estate on Boxing Day than any other day.”
With Domain as sponsor and data partner “from day dot,” Kon went deeper into the trend.
He describes a clear lull through spring into December, then a sudden spike from Boxing Day into January.
“We saw literally from Boxing Day to January, this spike,” he said.
And the why, he argues, is practical, not mystical: people are on holidays, relaxed and talking about housing without the usual workweek friction.
“People have got new devices. They’re on holidays. They’re relaxed,” he said.
“What do you think our house is worth… Could we live here… What’s it like to live in Mollymook?”
If the market was paying attention in late December and early January, the question became obvious: why weren’t agents meeting it with enough stock, enough structure, and enough urgency.
The plan: go big, early, and make it repeatable
The first ambition wasn’t timid. It was deliberately confronting.
“Imagine if we could do 30 auctions… as a campaign,” Kon said.
The mechanics started months earlier than most people expect. They ran a training session in October, approached suppliers during a quieter period, and asked for support on the basic marketing materials.
Then they layered in incentives designed to make the offer compelling for vendors.
“We went out to our suppliers… and we said, ‘Hey. Can you help us out with sign boards and brochures… Give us a little deal… an incentive for the vendors,’” he said.
John frames it as a straightforward trade: if you believe January and February are strong months to sell, you can build a model that benefits the entire chain.
“It’s win win for everyone,” he said. “Vendors win. Agents win. Kon stays in business.”
The team model: every auction is everyone’s job
What often gets missed in the Super Saturday story is that the auction count is only possible because of the group culture behind it, and Kon describes an operating model where support is expected, not negotiated.
“If you came to one of our auctions, we have five or six agents at every auction supporting the agent that’s actually got the auction,” he said.
There is no internal horse-trading, no quiet resentment about who “owns” the moment.
“There’s no, like, ‘Rob Peter to pay Paul… I’ll take a little bit of that.’ That’s not how we operate.”
Instead, the group has adopted one of John’s favourite lines as a cultural shorthand: “One plus one equals 11.”
It sounds like a slogan, but on a high-volume day, it becomes a system. Supporters manage bidders, answer questions, handle paperwork, keep the crowd engaged, and remove pressure from the listing agent so they can focus on the deal.
John also points out the operational reality behind onsite events: “It was hard… because you’ve got to have a lot of auctioneers to service.”
Capacity is not theoretical when the day is set, and the campaigns converge.
The scoreboard: from one risky day to an annual fixture
The first Super Saturday ran on 30 January 2021, with 31 auctions.
“The next year, we did 62. The next year, we did 79. The next year, we did 128,” Kon said.
“And last year, this year, we did 149.”
Now the target is deliberately audacious again: 200 auctions on 30 January 2026, “on one site on one day.”
John frames the growth as part innovation, part discipline, and part willingness to ignore what “usually” happens.
“It shows innovation, but it’s also just clarity and looking at things and saying, ‘Well, traditionally, why have people done something or not done something?’” he said. “We always challenge the status quo.”
The copycats have arrived, both men acknowledge. But the real differentiator, they argue, is not the name or the date, it’s the ability to execute the volume without losing standards.
Why it matters beyond one Saturday
Super Saturday is easy to dismiss as a marketing event if you only look at the headline number.
What it actually represents is a way of thinking: treat consumer attention as a signal, move earlier than competitors, and create a repeatable operating rhythm that vendors can buy into.
Kon is blunt about the reason he backs it. He doesn’t claim to be a selling agent; his role is to build the conditions where the team can perform.
“I’ve never listed or sold a property,” he said. “So… I can only win if you win, or my staff win, or my team wins.”
That’s why a single day can matter so much. It forces discipline, it tests training, and it demands teamwork.
It also makes the business confront the question that started it all: what happens if you treat January like your best month, not your quietest.
