For decades, auctions have been a highly visible and widely used method of sale in Melbourne – they were viewed as the benchmark method of sale, particularly in premium suburbs where competition is fierce and vendors have traditionally relied on the pressure of auction day to maximise their result.
But one agency is challenging that convention.
As buyer caution grows, finance conditions become more common and auction clearance rates continue to soften, Buxton Port Phillip co-directors, David Seeder and Zoe Cherrie, have spent the past 18 months rethinking whether auctions are still delivering the best outcomes for vendors.
Rather than adapting buyers to suit the auction process, they made the decision to adapt their sales strategy to suit buyers.
The result has been a wholesale shift towards Expressions of Interest (EOI) campaigns, which is a method they believe is expanding competition, increasing buyer participation and producing stronger results in today’s market.
Their conviction is backed by results. According to Property Data, just 15 per cent of Elwood properties sold via auction in 2026 to date, while Buxton has increasingly adopted EOI campaigns across its business, with 34 per cent of the agency’s sales now marketed using the method.
David said the move was never about finding a replacement for auctions, but about recognising that the market had fundamentally changed.
“We weren’t necessarily searching for a better method than auction,” he said.
“What we were looking for was a method of sale that still allowed us to create competition, still allowed us to achieve premium outcomes for our vendors, but also recognised that buyers today are operating very differently to the way they were five or 10 years ago.
“The reality is that buyers have become more cautious, lending conditions have become more complex and many purchasers now require flexibility around finance, settlement terms and other conditions. We needed a process that accommodated those realities rather than excluding those buyers altogether.”
A lesson learned during COVID
The seeds of that change were planted during the pandemic, when restrictions prevented traditional auctions and open homes from operating normally, agents across the country were forced to experiment with alternative selling methods.
While many returned to auctions once restrictions eased, David said the experience revealed opportunities that his team had not previously considered.
“During COVID we were forced to look at alternative ways of doing business because auctions simply weren’t available to us in the traditional sense,” he said.
“What that period taught us was that buyers were still prepared to compete for property, but they didn’t necessarily need to stand in a front yard with a paddle in their hand to do it.
“When we came out of COVID and then experienced rising interest rates and broader economic uncertainty, we found more and more buyers wanted flexibility. The traditional auction model wasn’t accommodating that shift.”
According to David, one of the biggest misconceptions about EOIs is that they somehow reduce competition. In practice, he argues the opposite occurs.
“An EOI campaign doesn’t remove competition from the process; it actually broadens the competitive landscape because it allows buyers who would otherwise be excluded from an auction to participate,” he said.
“If somebody needs finance approval, if they require a particular settlement timeframe or if there are other conditions attached to their purchase, an auction effectively shuts the door on them.
“With an EOI campaign, we can consider those buyers, evaluate the strength of their offer and ultimately provide our vendor with a more complete picture of the market.”
Zoe said the ability to engage every buyer in the marketplace was one of the biggest advantages of the strategy.
“We’re operating in a market where buyers are increasingly risk averse, regardless of their price point,” Zoe said.
“Even buyers spending more than $3 million are often looking for some level of comfort or protection in the transaction and if those buyers are prepared to pay a premium price but require a finance clause or different settlement terms, why would we deliberately exclude them from the process?
“Our view is very simple: more buyers create more competition and more competition creates better outcomes for vendors.”
When price isn’t everything
One recent Elwood transaction perfectly illustrated the point. Zoe explains the property marketed through an EOI campaign ultimately sold for $3.05 million to a buyer requiring a six-month settlement period.
While other buyers offered comparable prices, the structure of the successful offer delivered a stronger overall outcome for the vendor.
Zoe said it demonstrated why price alone should not determine the outcome of a campaign.
“People often assume that the highest price is automatically the best offer, but that’s not always the case,” she said.
“In this particular situation, we had buyers presenting different settlement structures, different financial positions and different conditions … when we assessed the offers in their entirety, it became clear that one offer delivered a superior net result for the vendor despite not fitting the traditional auction model.
“Those are the nuances that can easily be lost in a purely unconditional bidding environment.”