London retail park top seller at Allsop auction

Auctioneers at Allsop raised £47m from the sale of 52 lots at its first commercial auction of 2024, representing a success rate of 80%. The February auction saw 12 lots sold for £1m or more as the market shows continuing signs of recovery for commercial and mixed-use properties. The circa 47,000 sq ft Larkswood Leisure Park in Chingford, E4, which sold prior to auction at over £7.3m, was the highest value lot in the auction. The scheme is let to tenants including Nuffield Health, Tesco, Busy Bees Nurseries and Harvester, and sits on an 8.25-acre site including a 227-space car park. Some 2.1-acres of the site are currently unused. The asset provides a rent of around £680,000 per annum and has a WAULT of 16.1 years. The largest lot sold on the day raised £5.7m and is the largest commercial lot sold live at auction by Allsop since The Lady magazine’s office in Covent Garden sold for £12.4m in February 2019. The lot is a 29,520 sq ft Nuffield Health leisure club, sat on a 4.5-acre site in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. The asset provides around £443,000 pa rental income. Other highlights from the sale included 8-9 Lovat Lane, EC3 – an 8,068 sq ft office building, let at £358,000 pa, offering development potential, which sold for almost £4.3m, a 7.8% yield – and the 5,500 sq ft Farmfoods in Gateshead, which is let at £100,000 pa on a new 20-year lease. The latter sold for almost £1.5m – a 6.5% yield. At the smaller end of the scale, one of the most popular lots was a builders’ merchants in Bedford let on a short lease at £41,125 pa for only two more years. It sold for £900,000, a 4% yield, with the buyers anticipating a strong rental increase in 24 months’ time. George Walker, partner and commercial auctioneer at Allsop, said: “It is always invigorating for us and clients to see larger lots with so much competitive bidding, often after some months on the market with little success. “The auction buyer’s mentality is clear: they are seeking value or opportunity and can be very driven where they see the right mix in which to invest their cash.” Walker added that lack of supply was helping to drive competition to the better lots among “motivated buyers”. He said: “Neither the changing political landscape this year nor the costs of money impacts their appetite to buy, so provided the price is right we see this demand continuing.” Allsop’s next commercial auction takes place on 21 March, with the catalogue released on 1 March. Image © Allsop