It’s auctions galore this week, with Mark Jenkinson and Son, SDL Auctions, Bond Wolfe Auction and Auction House London achieving high success rates at their latest sales, proving that Lockdown 2.0 won’t slow the momentum of auctions just yet.

Property demand remains high despite ‘Lockdown 2’

The property market showed no signs of slowing down, with Auction House London raising almost £21 million at its October auction.

The auctioneer claims the market has boomed since sales went solely livestream in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, with many lots attracting ‘fierce’ competition.

As an example, a three-bed end terrace in Northolt, Middlesex, had 29 registered bidders and sold at almost double its £500,000 guide price for £926,000.

Co-director Jamie Royston comments: “The auction marketplace remains upbeat with plenty of incentives to buy and sell with the stamp duty holiday until March 2021 and borrowing still at low interest rates. Property continues to look like the best place to invest money and is certainly less volatile than the stock market.”

The recent sale saw 82% of the 93 lots offered sold, and property with development potential was in particularly high demand.

Highlights included a five-bedroom terraced house in Brixton, complete with an office and warehouse on the site. It was guided at £700,000 and sold for £1.21 million. In Ealing, a 1950s two-bedroom first-floor maisonette with just 20 years left on the lease and plenty of potential to extend was guided at £75,000 before selling for £251,000.

Royston adds: “There has been a strong upward trend in residential sales since June 2020 and we expect this to continue. Livestream property auctions have really taken off, proving popular and successful for both buyers and sellers.”

Auction House London is open for business as usual and is taking entries for its next sale on Wednesday 9 December 2020 at 12 noon.

Two-day sale is a ‘win-win’ for buyers and sellers at SDL Auctions

SDL Auctions’ first two-day national property auction was deemed a success after 200-plus properties went under the hammer, bringing the total raised for sellers during October to £20 million.

Buyers also benefitted, as they didn’t have to worry about rushing to complete their purchases before the stamp duty holiday ends.

Day one featured an eight-hour bumper sale of residential lots, while commercial properties were sold in a half-day auction the following day.

Bids came in thick and fast for Lea Chapel and Cottage, in Upper Lea near Matlock in Derbyshire. The lot comprised a 17th-century stone-built chapel and a two-bedroomed cottage on a large plot with the potential for an additional building. It sold for more than twice its guide price for £327,000.

Managing director and auctioneer Andrew Parker said the lot was ‘a fantastic way to start the October auction’ and set the tone for the rest of the day.

There was strong buyer interest in Wiltshire, where 42 & 44 East Street in Warminster attracted a ‘fierce’ bidding battle which saw the block of five one-bedroomed apartments sell for £289,000 from a guide price of £180,000-plus.

Another surge of interest was seen for 19 Esmond Road in Cheetham Hill, Manchester as bidders rushed to secure the three-bedroomed terraced refurbishment project. It sold for £148,000 from a guide of £91,000-plus.

Parker added: “Variety is always a feature of our auctions and I’m delighted to say we once again delivered a diverse range of properties. It’s always a pleasure to get great results for our sellers and we’re proud to be able to continue to do this safely through our increasingly popular live-streamed auctions.”

Since the start of 2020, SDL Auctions has sold more than 1,000 lots and raised more than £150 million for sellers, despite the challenges of the pandemic. Properties can be sold in monthly live-streamed national property auctions or in daily timed auctions.

Record price achieved at Sheffield auction

Mark Jenkinson and Son saw sales surpass the £5 million mark at its October auction.

The record-breaking sale was Kingston Way Factory Estate, a commercial lot of 12 industrial units, which sold on behalf of Hull City Council for £1,362,000 – well above its £950,000 guide.

The winning bid was £2,000 above the previous individual lot record for a Mark Jenkinson & Son auction set in 2015.

Several properties sold well above their estimate, including a cottage with adjoining land in Greasbrough which sold for £260,000 – £70,000 above its guide price. A 1.65-acre piece of land off Derbyshire Lane in Meersbrook sold for £152,000, more than three times its £25,000 estimate. Meanwhile, a former funeral parlour in Hillsborough also sold for over £50,000 more than its guide with a winning bid of £230,000.

Adrian Little, head of the auction department at Mark Jenkinson and Son, comments: “Despite the difficulties presented by Covid-19, the auction market has remained incredibly busy.”

“The online approach has proved extremely popular as buyers recognise the convenience of being able to safely bid from their homes or on the move rather than being in large group of people at Bramall Lane, which of course is just not an option at present.”

The team have already received over 30 entries for its final sale of the year, taking place on Tuesday 1 December.

New sales record of £21.2m for Bond Wolfe at October sale

Bond Wolfe Auctions has achieved the most successful result in its history with total sales of over £21.2 million at its latest auction.

The company sold 85 lots from the 201 offered on Wednesday 28 October, which represented a success rate of 92%. This trumps its previous record in February this year, when it achieved total sales of just over £20.25 million.

According to chief executive Gurpreet Bassi, the achievement represents how the demand for well-priced property continues to grow.

“We are experiencing a huge interest in our livestreamed auctions, with 603,152 website page views, 103,626 video tours watched and over 32,666 people tuning in to watch the 28 October auction live,” he says.

A highlight of the sale included a pair of former school caretakers’ cottages next to the Ormiston NEW Academy at 1 and 2 Marsh Lane in Wolverhampton. The three-bedroomed, semi-detached properties were sold together for £220,000 from a guide price of £148,000-plus.

Bidders also paid top prices in Brierley Hill, with £105,000 achieved for a two-bedroomed, semi-detached at 14 Albert Street, from a guide price of £59,000-plus, and £141,000 for a three-bedroomed, semi-detached at 35 Montgomery Crescent, from a guide price of £79,000-plus.

In Birmingham, a three-bedroomed, mid-terrace at 26 Summer Road, Edgbaston sold for £234,500 – well over double the guide price of £100,000-plus, while a three-bedroomed, semi-detached at 115 Dyas Avenue, Great Barr went for £160,000 from a guide price of £85,000-plus.

This success comes as Bond Wolfe Auctions was named ‘Newcomer of the Year’ by TheBusinessDesk.com – a virtual business awards ceremony that was streamed online.

Bassi comments: “It has been an extraordinary 21 months for all of us. We launched with a small but highly experienced team and we were delighted when so many of our old friends and contacts in the auction world backed us and believed in the vision we had,”

In its first year, the auction house sold 654 lots out of 751 lots offered in six auctions – an average success rate of 87% that raised more than £81.4 million in sales. This included an impressive 95% success rate in the December 2019 auction when 151 lots were sold from the 159 offered – the highest sales rate for a Midlands auction for 15 years.

During the past two years, the company has been appointed exclusive property auctioneers for Birmingham City Council, Wolverhampton City Council, Walsall Council and West Midlands Police. The Ministry of Justice, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and the Methodist Church have also instructed Bond Wolfe Auctions to sell lots on their behalf as well as banks, LPA receivers, solicitors and joint agents.

Its next online auction will be livestreamed via the website from 9am on Wednesday 9 December 2020, with remote bidding by proxy, telephone and internet only.

The deadline for entries is Friday 13 November and anyone with properties for sale should contact [email protected] or call 0121 312 1212.