Brooks earns top auctioneer honor

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — When Dave Brooks finished his service with the U.S. Marine Corps in 1973, he began helping a friend in the auction business.

“It just kept growing from there,” said Brooks, a newly-inducted member of the Illinois State Auctioneers Association Hall of Fame and owner and operator of Brooks Auctions and Appraisals, Peoria.

Brooks was bestowed the honor during the ISAA’s annual conference Feb. 25.

Brooks Auctions and Appraisals conducts weekly auctions at its Bartonville location, as well as weekly online auctions.

“I do personal properties, estates, trust departments for the banks and attorneys. We do mostly estates for the banks and attorneys, for people downsizing or going into retirement homes. We do a lot of personal properties and estate auctions,” Brooks said.

He is past president of ISAA, an accredited real estate auctioneer, certified estate specialist, a member of ISAA and its North Region district governor and also a member of the National Auctioneers Association. He earned his initial certification from the Certified Auction Institute.

“It’s just a humbling experience and I’m so very proud.”

—  Dave Brooks, owner and operator, Brooks Auctions and Appraisals

Brooks took a break from the ISAA conference events to talk about his honor and experiences in the business.

What are your thoughts about being inducted into the hall of fame?

It’s pretty humbling because it was a complete surprise. My youngest boy was in Las Vegas and one of my girls called him and he flew in from Las Vegas.

We had no idea it was coming, but to be with your peers who put you in there, people you work with and been with for the last 20 some years, to be recognized, it’ll set you down. It’s just a humbling experience and I’m so very proud.

How many years have you been involved with ISAA?

I started here in 1973 and then things got bad up here in the 1980s and we went to Texas with family. We came back to Illinois in 1989 and I started auctioning here again.

In 1999, I met Terry Wilkey, who was an auctioneer in El Paso, Illinois, and we became real good friends. So, I went to auction school to get a license because I missed the grandfather clause.

I started working with Terry and he brought me into the association. He had a big passion for the association and to promote it and keep it going, and that kind of grew on me. Now it’s my passion and I’ve been in ISAA for 23 years now.

I haven’t missed a convention, and you just learn at them. You network in the hallways, we have continuing education classes, and you just are learning and learning, networking these guys, some of the best guys in the state. It’s a lot of fun along with learning, and just keep growing and growing.

What are some of the changes of note you’ve seen in the auction business?

We used to do a lot of onsite sales. You would go to the house, drag everything out of the house and auction it, but now with the liability and everything, the banks and trustees want everything moved off the property basically. We take it to our facility.

We auction weekly with a live auction every Wednesday night and we do an online once a week. So, running two auctions a week, one online and one live, and we can’t keep up with it now.

There is such a massive demand for it right now with people moving out of the state and people retiring and moving to retirement homes where they don’t have the room.