我已經有好幾年沒有參加地產拍賣了，但我今天下午剛好參加了一個頗不尋常的拍賣會。拍賣師所主持的拍賣方式真的不是我能欣賞的，他以澄清新聞界對有關報導不完全正確作為開場白，為此他花了約五分鐘的時間做的事情，我認為是完全跟拍賣無關的。期間，他被自己的手機響鈴打斷兩次。經過了那樣的開場白之後，他才開始拍賣，叫價底價為1.88億港元，場內沒有回應，然後，他把底價降低了200萬港元，仍然沒有回應，他再進一步調整為每次降低200萬港元，最後降至1.68億港元。
氣氛仍然長時間的寂靜，在這樣無反應的氣氛下，拍賣師唯有懇求在場的三位已登記的投標人出價。這樣才有第1號投標人出價，但拍賣師說該價不足以符合底價，因此他又增加了75萬，投標人很不情願地把出價增加到1.7億港元。整個過程都是在極度寂靜和不熱衷的情形下進行。拍賣師自己企圖為投標人把出價提高到投標人應價之後，他才宣佈由於出價未達底價，將該地產退出拍賣。我認為整個活動沒有適當地處理好，這樣的荷蘭式拍賣師真失敗！
Auction of the former HQ of Heung Yee Kuk
It has been years that I didn’t attend property auction. But the one that I just attended this afternoon was quite extraordinary. The way how the auctioneer conducted the auction was really not my cup of tea. He started it off with an explanation as to what the press had reported inbthe news was not entirely correct. So he took up about five minutes to do something that i considered totally irrelevant to the auction. During which, he was interrupted twice by his own mobile when it rang. After so much so the opening, he then kicked off the auction with an initial asking price at HK$188m. There was no response from the floor. He then started to reduce the asking price by HK$2m. Still, no response. He further adjusted each call by HK$2m until it came down to HK$168m. There was a long dead silence. In light of the non responsive atmosphere, the auctioneer then virtually begged the three registered bidders on the floor to make a bid. Only then a bid was made by the No 1 bidder. But the auctioneer said the bid was not good enough to match up with the reserved price, so he increased it by 750 thousand. Bidder reluctantly increased his bid to HK$170m. The process was conducted in a deadly silent and unenthuisatic manner. After the auctioneer’s own attempt to raise the price to HK$172m which was met by the bidder, the auctioneer declared that due to the bid not reaching to the reserved price set by the vendor, the property was withdrawn from the auction. I think the entire exercise was not appropriately handled. Such a Dutch style auctioneer was totally a failure!