Trading Stories: Auctioneera disrupts the property market

What's your background and how did the business get started?

My background, along with my co-founder, Eddie O' Driscoll, is in digital marketing and online retail. We both have a number of years' experience in dealing with tight margins for E-commerce sites and coupled with the property expertise and knowledge of Glenn Henley our Director, we recognised the gap in the market for a more fairly priced, leaner, transparent model of selling a property in Ireland. Thus was born the fixed price fee of €999+VAT that we now operate which follows the ethos of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: "one man's margin is another man's opportunity".

What kinds of challenges did you face in setting up?

In a traditional and established industry such as the property/estate agency sector, being 'new' is the challenge. This is surmountable though because inevitably as we add more and more properties, which are doing every single day, that 'newness' factor diminishes.

Explain what your business offers?

As a fully licensed and regulated estate agency, we can sell your property just like every other estate agent but for a fixed price of €999+VAT. This differs from a traditional estate agent who charges a percentage of the selling price, often topped off with marketing fees stretching into hundreds. Industry standard fees are in the region of 1.5% + VAT meaning that the fee to sell a property for €300,000 exceeds €5,500 – that is just insanity in our view and this is the margin that we feel presents us with an opportunity. Very often the conveyancing solicitor receives a fraction of the fee of the agent for performing a significantly more complex task.

What sets you apart from other estate agents?

Price. Our fixed fee is in fact, Ireland's lowest fee for selling a property - we've checked! This has been warmly welcomed by property vendors who heretofore had no option but to grudgingly pay several thousand euro in fees owing to a lack of a viable alternative – we provide that alternative and return literally thousands of euro of the vendor’s own money to them in the process.

What has changed in the market in recent years?

A key change has been the availability of the Property Price Register (available to use on our website) which allows anyone to view the actual sales price of any residential property transaction in Ireland since 2010. This has democratised the local knowledge that is so zealously horded by local agents as the justification for their extortionate fees, i.e. anyone with an internet connection can see the most recent sales prices of property in any area of the country. The ability to submit offers online is something we have been doing for many months now and has been embraced by time-poor house hunters who want to make offers when it suits them, not the agent. You can see more at www.auctioneera.ie

Is it tough operating in the current housing market?

We depend on property transaction volume and currently the market is healthy. This year we estimate that there will be over 60,000 residential transactions in the Irish property market; this compares starkly to the 2011 figure of 18,000 transactions so we're in a good place and well positioned to scale.

What solutions do you think estate agents can provide for the current housing crisis?

In terms of our role at Auctioneera, transparency and efficiency is important to people as they try to get on the property ladder and we feel our fixed price, online offering delivers that to both buyers and sellers. Currently the main issue in this country is supply as we know. The government is telling us that supply is beginning to come on stream, and it is, but it certainly will take a number of years yet before the market returns to equilibrium.

What kind of people do you deal with?

We deal with all types of clients and every property has its unique features. In terms of people, we deal with everything from 'empty nesters' wishing to downsize, to landlords who want to get out of long term letting, to those who are selling due to work or life changes, to families selling on homes they have inherited. It can be a sad time for people letting go of a property that they have lived in for a long time so you have to be mindful of that at times too. Great trust is given to us when we take on a property; there's a lot of money involved and we take the whole process from beginning to end very seriously and focus on providing a professional service.

Tell us a little bit about your staff.

Glenn Henley, our Director brings the property expertise to Auctioneera with his extensive experience in selling real estate all over the country. Eddie O' Driscoll is in charge of strategy and operations. Megan McKeon is our Property Negotiator and she has extensive experience in the estate agency market but also has worked internationally in New York real estate so she brings a fresh voice to proceedings. We are growing fast so of course as we do we plan to recruit locally in Cork and nationwide to build the Auctioneera team.

What's in the future for your business?

We are focused on continuing our market share growth; we are passionately ambitious about our service and believe we can achieve double-digit market share as we grow over the coming years.