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It continues to surprise me how many inner-city properties go to auction when they shouldn’t. 

Unlike freestanding houses where each property is unique, apartments just don’t enjoy the same benefits from auctions. 

The concept of an auction is to gather a group of interested buyers together at a certain place and time to bid against each other to arrive at the highest possible price.
The underlining factor that determines the best possible price is uniqueness. 

Apartment buildings can have as many as 400 units sharing a dozen or so different floor plans. That makes it difficult to be unique. When an identical apartment a couple of floors up or down sells, you can, with a degree of confidence assume that your property will sell at a similar price. 

There are two prices for a property:
1) The mathematical price which factors in price per square metre, what level it sits on and what aspect it faces.
2) The emotional price which is the price someone is willing to pay based on their personal reasons.
For auctions to be effective, you have to attract emotional buyers who are willing to outbid other buyers in order to aquire the home of their dreams. 

Don’t consider auctioning if:
There are similar or identical apartments that are currently available for sale or you’ve had your property on the market for some time and it’s not selling. 

Do consider auctioning if:
You have a much sought after floor plan which rarely hits the market, your property is in a small boutique block with very little turnover or you have made major renovations. 

The golden rule of supply and demand is what will always cap apartment prices. Ultimately, when people have a choice of similar properties, they will not bid high.
We need to acknowledge that the suburban real estate market is very different to the inner-city apartment market and methods that work well with houses will not necessarily work well on apartments.