A six-bedroom HMO in Portsmouth, with a rental income of £63,480 pa, was one of the purchasing highlights of Clive Emson Auctioneers’ November auction. It fetched £620,000, representing an inflation-busting gross yield of 10.2%.   

Elsewhere, a block of self-contaioned flats and apartments in Gillingham, Kent – currenty let at £86,460 pa – fetched £1,150,000, a gross yield of 7.5% (lot 113).

Meanwhile, a former rest home on the western tip of the Isle of Wight sold for £601,000. The premises has 20 residents’ bedrooms and a two-bedroom self-contained apartment.

Also up for auction was Cuckoo’s Nest, the name of a four-bedroom detached Georgian house in Trinity Square, Margate, Kent. The property, which had lain untouched for many years, sold for £131,250 more than the guide price. The final bid – one of 72 – came in at £351,250.

There was also woodland with an underground reservoir and former pumping station in Reigate, Surrey, which sold for £63,000, almost twice the guide price. And two parcels of land on the south side of Higher Stennack, St Ives, Cornwall, with permission for two houses to be built, which went for £175,000.

The site of a former fire station in Broadstairs, Kent, which covers nearly 1.7 acres, fetched £700,000, while in the former mining town of Tonypandy, Mid-Glamorgan, Wales, a residential and commercial property went for £88,000, £13,000 more than the guide price (lot 62). In addition, a former Methodist chapel near Sittingbourne, Kent, sold for £321,000.

Clive Emson’s next online auction, the final one of eight this year, ends on Wednesday 14 December, with bidding opening 48 hours beforehand. Lot entries close on Monday 21 November, with the online catalogue being released on Friday 25 November.

James Emson, managing director at the firm, said: “We had 155 lots listed across southern England and Wales, with various investment properties achieving respectable yields for buyers in this time of record-high inflation and rising interest rates.

“Whilst the economy has been choppy, to put it mildly, property investors tend to have long-term outlooks and we saw that again in the latest auction with what was bought.”

He added: “We look forward to December’s auction, the last of eight this year, and 2023, which will no doubt bring new challenges and opportunities to businesses and individual investors.”