A London development site was sold prior to the Acuitus live-streamed May sale for in excess of £4m, helping the auctioneer to a total of £13.4m and a 73% success rate.
The 0.33-acre site opposite East Finchley Underground station (lot 25) had been guided at £4.75m in its March catalogue, but the ballroom auction had to be cancelled due to lockdown. It was relisted with the same guide for the 21 May live-streamed auction and was the highest priced lot by some margin.
Close to the McDonald’s UK head office, it has planning consent for 25 flats, as well as offices on the ground and lower ground floors.
Auctioneer Richard Auterac said: “At a time when people are wondering about the future trajectory of the London residential development sector this was an endorsement of the market’s prospects.”
During the auction, a retail and residential investment in Harrow sold for £645,000 at a yield of 3.45%. The Streatfield Road property (lot 20) comprises a shop let on a new 15-year lease at a current rent of £24,000, and a self-contained, four-room maisonette on the upper floors.
Another potential development site – this time on the High Street in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire – also attracted interest. The unoccupied 6,795 sq ft supermarket (lot 3) – currently let to Booker Retail Partners (GB) until 2037 at a current rent of £80,000 – also has a 30-space car park at the rear of the property, which makes it potentially suitable for either development or a change of use. It sold for £1.04m at a yield of 7.2% and attracted 204 bids.
Acuitus offered 22 lots, 16 of which found buyers. Other successes included a Co-operative supermarket in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire (lot 8), which sold for £1.06m, a sub-10% yield. It had been guided at £950,000-£1.05m.
However, a Waitrose in Amersham, Buckinghamshire (lot 6), producing £194,868 per annum and guided at £2.2m, failed to find a buyer.
Auterac said: “The progress of the commercial property investment market will become clearer as business life begins to return to more normality in the coming months.
“During that time, auctions will play an important part in both giving investors immediate access to a diverse range of assets, and providing sellers with the opportunity to offer their properties for sale confident in the knowledge that they are being fully exposed to the market.
“We are pleased that our new method of conducting auctions has been well-received and look forward to our next sale in July.”
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