In an earlier video I openly wondered, while sharing my thoughts on the impact of coronavirus on the property market, whether a fully online property auction has ever been done before in Australia.

As the saying goes, where your mind goes, energy flows and here you go, while browsing through the latest news yesterday, I came across an article about auctioneer Damien Cooley.

It turns out that Damien performed the very first fully online auction in Sydney!

Due to the Coronavirus, for this particular auction, held in Bellevue Hill, it was requested that only serious bidders would attend, so the broader public stayed outside.

The three potential buyers ended up all being online bidders, plus, the vendors watched on their computer screen as they are in lockdown in Germany.

One of the bidders couldn’t physically attend and the other two were worried about the coronavirus.

The eventual winning bid was made by a bidder who stayed home, only 4 kilometers away, in Surrey Hills.

After the auction, Damien drove to where the purchaser was, met with him at a service station and signed contracts.

What I love about this is that in times of hardship, the ones who step away from the status quo survive.

Having a special system that accommodates online property auctions is innovative and sets you up for enormous success while the ones protecting the status quo are sure to fail.

The moral of the story here is to think laterally about the enormous opportunities a time like this brings and don’t be afraid to allow yourself to dream about how the post-virus business world is going to look like and be an active part of shaping it the way YOU want.