Liam Bradbery wins 2021 REINSW Novice Auctioneers Competition

Six finalists battled it out on Tuesday evening at this year's REINSW Novice Auctioneers Competition (NAC) Final. The NAC is a platform for the state's would-be and up-and-coming auctioneers to try their hand at auctioneering. The event, which was held online for the first time ever due to the COVID restrictions, saw Liam Bradbery, a former voice over artist from Sydney take out the winner's crown.

Bradbery joined the real estate industry in 2018, working for Propertybuyer whilst obtaining his real estate licence. Now what with studying a full-time degree in Property Valuation along with his public speaking experiences, Bradbery who sees his skills aligning for his budding auctioneering career, was thrilled - he likes people, he's passionate about property and he loves auctions!

"It was great, so fantastic, I'm just so happy!" says Bradbery. "I was gutted I didn't place in the Newcastle heat earlier in the competition and just started working so hard - drilling the auctioneering basics over and over. I put in the hard yards, winning the Sydney CBD heat in May and now I've won the final!"

This year for the second year in a row, the pressure was stepped up with the finalists given an actual property to auction off - this year it was a rural property in Oberon. The property sold for $400,000 over the reserve price.

"I didn't think the bidding would get that high," says Bradbery. "I'd only been practising in the hundreds of thousands (of dollars) so once we got over $1 million, trying to track the numbers correctly was a new kind of challenge, but I'm very proud that I managed it."

NAC Head Judge, Thomas McGlynn, says Bradbery's rhythm and tempo in the way that he called his auction during the final was as though he was an experienced auctioneer, and he really made a great impression with the way that he conducted himself throughout the competition.

"The judges look for a level of improvement from finalists between their heat and the final and Liam displayed a high level of commitment," says McGlynn. "He really scored well across all facets of his auction during the competition final. He was able to get a couple of bids that the others didn't and it was very noticeable how much practice he had put in in order to refine his auction call and make it so polished and professional."

"The added pressure of calling an online auction is very different than calling a stereotypical online auction. I think that was quite representative of what the entire industry has had to deal with during the pandemic, especially in NSW over the past three months."

"The competitors had to shift from thinking the NAC Final was going to be in-person to all of a sudden it was going online at short notice; I was really impressed with the way that all the competitors handled that extra pressure on the night," says McGlynn.

"We really expanded our horizons during the NAC this year by taking the competition back out to the country," says McGlynn. "We went to Tamworth and that was a really great experience. I'm very happy to see that we are continuing to create pathways for everyone in NSW to learn, to improve and to potentially become full time auctioneers. That is something that I think everyone involved with NAC can be very proud of and to see the mixture of both metro and country people in the final I think was something also that everyone can really be excited about for the future of auctioneering."

NAC 2021 finalists

Wildcard Matthew Campion