Tweed Sutherland First National Real Estate completed its first hybrid auction on August 14 with online bidders competing with on-site bidders for the Condon Street property.

Tweed Sutherland director and senior auctioneer Matt Leonard said the hybrid auction model allowed registered bidders anywhere in the world bid against people at the auction site.

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"It integrates both people online and in person," he said. "The reason it works well is with uncertainty of lockdowns you can move auctions online, but if you are marketing a property for auction and you're not in lockdown, you can conduct an auction on-site and allow online bidders.

"The auction at Condon Street had an equal amount of online bidders and on-site bidders. The property was sold to an online bidder and the sale went very smoothly. It was the first hybrid auction in Bendigo."

Mr Leonard said the hybrid auction system is likely to stay in place after the coroanvirus pandemic.

"With the uncertainties of lockdowns, it means we can still commit to an auction campaign without having to withdraw the property from sale," he said. "These things will remain in place as we start to come out of COVID.

"The hybrid model is great system to have moving forward. Other things we have had to introduce are things like virtual inspections, so we people buying properties sight unseen off back of a virtual inspection.

"COVID has obviously been a difficult thing to navigate for all businesses and it has been difficult for families, small business owners, the hospitality sector and gyms. There has been a lot of disruption.

"But from disruption can come positive outcomes and I believe the way we conduct business in real estate and other sectors can change for the positive. This hybrid auction platform is one of the examples."

Mr Leonard said Tweed Sutherland chose the Anywhere Auctions plantform after researching a number of online auction systems.

To take part in an hybrid or online auction, people must register, provided 100 points of identification and provide the real estate agent with their credit card details.

"We have a camera streaming the auction online and (digital bidders) are treated as someone who is bidding in person," Mr Leonard said. "We have a penciller with an iPad who lets the auctioneer know (about online bids) and the auctioneer uses the online bidders name and looks at the camera...

"We had bidders from Melbourne who were unable to come up and attend and this enabled them to still be able to bid and view the auction online."

Mr Leonard said he believed regional Victoria would continue to see more people moving from metropolitan to regional areas.

"We call them VESPAs - Viral escapees seeking provincial Australia," he said. "That is also going to be the norm coming out of COVID. (There will be) people looking to get out of Melbourne who are working from home and negotiating with employers to move to somewhere like Bendigo and work one day a week in Melbourne.

"In a lot of cases working from home has been a success and good employers don't want to lose good employees.

"Prior to COVID it wasn't on anyone's mind to do that because regional areas didn't have the jobs, but now people can retain their Melbourne jobs. It is the reason why the Bendigo market will continue to be a very robust market and I believe we will continue to see growth in the remainder of the year heading in 2022."

"COVID has obviously been a difficult thing to navigate for all businesses and it has been difficult for families, small business owners, the hospitality sector and gyms. There has been a lot of disruption.

"But from disruption can come positive outcomes and I believe the way we conduct business in real estate and other sectors can change for the positive. This hybrid auction platform is one of the examples."

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