18th Feb auction raises a staggering £3.65m (91%), despite being held behind closed doors as bidders embrace virtual technology to secure property.
In the midst of the ongoing pandemic and national lockdown, expectations on how the February auction would play out were difficult to predict. Rewinding to the first week in January and perhaps the most depressing point of this whole pandemic with nothing to look forward to and abysmal weather, the biggest concern was whether we would even have enough properties to list in the February catalogue. With people encouraged to stay at home, restrictions on viewings and the number of people working from home, it felt doubtful we could even proceed and may have to postpone the sale until April.
However, as people returned to their new style of work, encouraged at least that there was light at the end of the tunnel with the new vaccines, there was a trend building, that people were beginning to realize that the financial markets are going to be in dire straights when lockdown ends with the true extent of the damage caused to businesses likely to result in high levels of repossessions and forced sales, saturating the market and resulting in an oversupply of availability. This, combined with the risk that people may soon have to start paying interest on the money they hold in the bank, has forced many owners to react quickly by selling whilst there is an artificially high level of activity in the auction markets.
This trend was quickly evident, with a surge in new instructions and by the cut off for entries on 25th January we had managed to compile an impressive catalogue of 42 lots of properties around the UK including pubs and offices in Scotland, houses and land in Wales and a wide range of investment property across the rest of the country.
Whilst we could pat ourselves on the back for managing to compile an impressive catalogue (we are a very small team), it quickly dawned that the biggest problem was going to be the marketing phase where normally high numbers of people attend the physical block viewings. With lockdown in full force we required a new technique to reach our audience, the ‘Virtual Tour’ whereby potential buyers are given a video tour of the Lot with running commentary on the full extent of the property ‘warts and all’. This proved an invaluable tool as buyers could get a first hand account from the safety of their home of each lot as well as being able to download the legal packs directly from the website. This combined with their ability to bid remotely, either by telephone, on-line or by proxy meant that bidding numbers were incredibly high.
On the day of the auction, we had over 200 pre-registered bidders, all vying to secure the lots on offer. Highlights of the sale included a parcel of small parcel of land in Manchester guided at £80,000+ which sold in a lengthy bidding war for a stratospheric price of £611,000! A similar result was achieved for a small parcel of land in Nottingham near the University Campus, guided at £25,000+ and which sold in a frenzy of bidding for £136,000.
Its not unusual to see certain lots reach record prices, but what surprised us the most was the number of lots where we thought selling them would be marginal (as clients had set high reserves despite limited interest). With a number of these marginal lots there were only a handful of bidders registered, but each seemed determined to secure the property they had been set up to bid on pushing the sale price at or above the reserve levels and the gavel falling, much to the clients delight!
The combination of these sales in the room, along with a raft of deals that had been agreed pre-auction resulted in a highly impressive result of £3,653,800 being raised and a 91% success rate. This cements our position as Nottingham’s leading auction house and will start to prick the ears of the country’s leading auction houses, highlighting again that being a large scale corporate isn’t a necessity to ensure national sales as we demonstrate yet again our versality in selling property across the UK and delivering market leading results, impressive for the size and scale of our company which is set to meet our clients needs as we head into treacherous waters.
We expect a flurry of new entries as those looking to sell capitalize on our success, with entries now being invited from across the UK into our next auction to be held on 15th April 2021.
