An Auction Pioneer Takes Life Easier
THE SUNDAY AGE
Saturday August 14, 1993
THESE days, at 75, real estate agent William R. Hogg is taking life easier and he sells only the occasional commercial property.
In a cosy office at the back of his Strathmore home, he asks: ``Why do you want to interview me, I'm yesterday's man?" He may be right, but this veteran of the industry was among the real estate agents who, in the 1950s, popularised auction sales in Melbourne.
For more than 50 years, Mr Hogg has sold property in the western suburbs and he is remembered as one of those who lifted the profile of on-site auctions in that area.
Before the '50s, auctions were limited mostly to mortgagee, deceased estates and realisation listings. Today, more properties are offered at auction in Melbourne than anywhere else in Australia.
It was in 1936, when Mr Hogg was 18, that he joined Footscray real estate agent (James) Alf Greenwood. ``We were supposed to be coming out of the Depression then, so things were starting to get better, the property market was improving," he says.
His career was interrupted for five years during World War II, but by 1949 he had taken over the Greenwood business.
The industry, he recalls, was hampered in those days by federal controls that kept house prices and rentals at their pre-1941 levels.
``It was just ridiculous because it was in the middle of the first major migration wave and demand for property was intense.
``Rental stock was run down and we could only raise rents by applying to the Fair Rents Board. You'd be extremely fortunate to get an increase.
Landlords were finding it difficult to cover maintenance costs while rents stayed low, he says.
Later that year, land-sales controls were removed and immediately his phone rang hot with people wanting to sell their homes.
``I cautioned a lot of clients not to sell because I thought prices would rise for the next 12 months, and I was dealing with a lot of people who were still renting and had lost a house in the Depression," he says.
Continuing migration waves, he says, kept buyer-demand buoyant.
Properties then could be listed with several agents who often were unaware that others were trying to sell the same property.
When he was beaten to a sale by another agent, and he realised he would not recoup the 30 he had spent advertising and ferrying would-be buyers to inspect the house, he told his wife his business would go broke unless he could eliminate this type of competition.
He says the strategy he came up with _ to auction all homes from then on _ was met with disdain next morning in his office. ``They said I should be put in the Sunbury asylum on the hill.
At the time of his troubles, Mr Hogg had an auctioneer's licence but, despite having spent four years studying voice production and elocution to rid him of a stammer, he got cold feet and tucked it away for six months. .
``I practised auctioneering in the attic of the family home," he says. ``I had to keep the patter going, not leave gaps, address the audience and make sense.
His first auction _ a house in Donald Street, Footscray _ was a success, with about 60 people, mostly clients, friends and family, attending.
When a newspaper advertised Polaroid cameras for sale, he dashed to Myer the next morning and bought one. ``It was magic," says Mr Hogg.
Before long, he had enough house pictures to fill a page in the local newspaper.
On auction day, a house was dressed in flags, a nine-metre banner was hung on the front fence and bunting adorned the veranda. Auctioneer's props included a collapsible rostrum, a heavy-duty gavel and a marine- style bell, which was rung through nearby streets just before the auction.
``You couldn't just put an auction board on a house and advertise it and expect it to sell by itself," he says.
At the peak of his business, in 1972, Mr Hogg operated from a shop emblazoned with ``The House of Real Estate" and he had 23 staff including six auctioneers.
The same year, he says, he became the first real estate agent in Victoria to buy computers, which he used to organise trust accounts.
In 1983 he retired from Alf Greenwood Real Estate, leaving it to his three partners.
© 1993 THE SUNDAY AGE