In the 12 months to the end of October, investors have bought more than £3bn of residential and commercial property at auction. Digging deeper into Essential Information Group data, managing director David Sandeman says close to £2bn has been sold in purely online auctions this year owing to the introduction of Covid-19 restrictions during March.
Let’s pause there for a minute. That’s £2bn of houses, flats, maisonettes, ground rents, shops, hotels, offices and care homes, not to mention the odd castle and a chunk of Roman wall, all sold online – be that in live-streamed sales with a real-life auctioneer or via eBay-style auctions.
It’s a stunning validation of the adaptability of private investors, vendors and, of course, the UK’s auction houses, which have embraced technology in order to maintain a market in the most unusual of circumstances.
A few were already using online sales, either exclusively or as an additional service line. Some were putting systems in place, such as those supplied by EIG or Bamboo Auctions, or building their own before the pandemic began. Others scrambled to join them when lockdown hit. It’s safe to say that most sales up to that point were still being conducted in the flesh in hotels and convention rooms. It really was crunch time.
It must be said that the running 12-month total is down by 14% year-on-year (see tables below), continuing the downward trajectory since a peak of £4.6bn for the 12 months to October 2017. Commercial is hardest hit, with the total down by 23.6% for the rolling 12-month period. Residential was down by 10.6%, boosted by the stamp duty holiday.
The quarterly figures shown in the map below also indicate market variation. The East Midlands, London and the north-west home counties experienced a very good three months to October compared with last year, while Scotland (resi only), Wales and the North East – areas particularly hard hit by the pandemic – are unable to match 2019’s figures.
Stock levels have declined year after year since 2017, against a difficult economic and political backdrop (see chart above). And therein lies the main challenge for 2021, just as Brexit bites – as well as the small matter of when, or even if, auctions will return to the room.
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