Koputara, a 244 hectare beef fattening farm near Himatangi Beach in the Manawatu was offered for sale by auction on 10th March.
After 148 years in the Spiers family, it took less than 15 minutes of spirited bidding for it to change hands. Here’s an outline of how that auction progressed.
Rural and Lifestyle Sales office in Feilding was packed full of aspiring bidders and locals interested to see how the property would sell. Principal Richard Anderson welcomed them all and provided a brief description of the property. Noting how rare the opportunity is to secure such a significantly sized property in this location.
Auctioneer David Cotton took everyone through the key points within the Auction Terms and Conditions and then called for an opening bid from the floor.
Silence. The vendors were probably starting to think nobody wanted their farm.
David used his right to bid on behalf of the Vendors and duly opened the bidding at $4.7 million. He invited further bids at $50,000 rises.
Bid! That didn’t take long. $4,750,000 from a gentleman to the auctioneers left.
This was soon followed by a faint nod and the raising of an eyebrow in the direction of Salesperson Robert Dabb from a chap standing in the back corner of the room.
These two parties carried on with tit for tat bidding until things stalled out at $5.2 million. The auctioneer then advised a pause to the auction while he consulted out the back with the four members of the Spiers family.
He returned a few minutes later with clear instructions: “Ladies and gentlemen, the reserve price has been met, make no doubt about it, you are now bidding to own”. He re-commenced the auction asking for $20,000 rises.
Bid! Straight away a new bidder made his interest known, standing out in front.
Bid! The chap who had been holding the $5.2 million bid quickly countered.
This process of $20,000 rises carried on through to $5,640,000 when the original bidder rounded the price up to $5,700,000. Sometimes that ploy works to shake off the competition – today it didn’t.
The $20,000 increases continued through to $5,820,000. In total 49 bids were made. David Cotton called three times for any other bids. Further silence.
Eventually the silence was broken by the fall of the hammer.
SOLD!
A spontaneous round of applause took place for the successful purchaser who had been the first to bid and stuck with it all the way to the end.
