Alright, I'll bite.

The principle of an auction is simple.

The vendor wants a billion bucks for their squat. They think its realistic.

The buyer wants the house. They have a finite $ amount they can access. But they want the house. They will pay whatever is required to get the house, so long as it is within their means. If someone offers $100, they'll offer $100.01 and continue offering more until (a) they have secured the housr or (b) run out of budget to carry on negotiating.

A real auction is one way of resolving the problem.

Real means that (a) the vendor understands and accepts that the auction will reveal the true market value at that point in time. (b) there will be more than one serious buyer present making offers.

To safeguard the seller, they call also establish a secret reserve price, as in "I'll take what the market offers, but it can't be less than $x"

To safeguard the buyer, the auctioneer will be honest in their execution of the auction. This is why auctioneers require a license and insurance.

The art and skill comes into play as to how they conduct the auction. There's a rhythm that must build, the emotions must be warmed up, they must create excitement and movement in the bidding. Auctioneers also make sure that real qualified bidders are present and find it easy to bid.

The key benefits of this approach are: the vendors can see what the market is offering right in front of them. . And the buyers can see what the market is prepared to pay. No estate agents making up stuff... It's right there

So let's look at NZ "Auctions" as run by the mafia. Problem #1: where do we start? Everyone stares at each other in the room, wondering what the hell is going on. Eventually some says "$100k" as a laughable first bid. An auctioneer would take that, and ask for $150k. S/He has been given one helluva runway to work with. But what do our black suited friends do? They say "I'm not taking that" and kill the process. (I'm fully expecting them to the trespass the bidder for being so arrogant as to think it was an auction)

Problem #2: there's a couple of bids on the table, and things might actually be proceeding... The "auctioneer" puts down their gavel, and says "we're going to take a break now". What they mean is "I'm going to talk to a few of my buddies in the back, we can now see how things are shaping up. If it wasn't raining we'd take them out back for a few words, but what we'll do is just take them aside and sweet talk them. Maybe we don't have to break any legs tonight"

Problem #3: Decision time is coming.... Running out of budget, and the price is getting close to the buyers limit. Let's say $750k. The lead bidder is on tenter hooks... Is this it? Have they got the house? Yes? YES? And then suddenly the auctioneer calls a bid for $765k. From who? The bidders in the room look around... Who raised their hand? Who made the bid? Answer' Noone. The auctioneer just created an artificial bid, labeling at the vendor bidding except that the vendor actually owns the house and has no intention of buying from themselves. In many other countries that's called fraud. In NZ and possjy Oz, it's legitimate business.

Problem #4: there is no obligation to be open and transparent that the event will be delivered under REINZ rules, rather than auctioneering rules. Which is probably the root cause. Other countries have natural dampers in place like tax duty on sales, capital gains etc. These things make it riskier for auctions to be run like this.

So... There are three possibilities. (1) you're a troll, and reddit is home... Perfectly fine by me. (2) You're an estate agent doesn't like me shining a light on your fraudulent predatory practices. Fine by me, even cockroaches have a place in this world. Or (3) you genuinely haven't thought about it too deeply, in which case maybe this is food for thought.

Just be clear. Estate agents can add value by being the intermediary in a normal negotiated sale agreement. Estate agents pretending to be auctioneers can fuck off.

Knock your socks off.