Investors are still “selectively acquiring”, according to Healey & Baker auctioneer Tim Weale, after raising just £3.63m from a 29-lot catalogue.
H&B last week joined the growing list of commercial firms recording indifferent results, disposing of 17 lots for a 59% success rate.
Four lots sold afterwards to push the realisation nearer to £4m, and “negotiations are at an advanced state” on Liverpool’s Cotton Exchange. The 180,000-sq ft landmark failed to excite the room, despite producing over £300,000 pa. Bids stopped at £840,000 – well short of the £1m-plus that H&B had expected.
H&B also failed to sell the catalogue’s other highlight – a leasehold interest with 38 years unexpired in Marks & Spencer’s Pantheon store on Oxford Street, W1.
“We were surprised not to have sold more, but this does give a distorted impression. The recent fashion to wait and see and try to negotiate bargains after the sale was evidently in play this afternoon,” said Weale.
“I hope this tactic will be abandoned. Buyers are hurting only themselves. At our last auction, a property sold afterwards at a higher price than the reserve.”
Weale achieved good prices on several lots, however, to support the widely held view that demand still exists for “quality investments”. A Sears store producing £35,000 pa at High Road in Wembley, Middlesex, raised £402,000, while a 4,230-sq ft office investment let to Forte at £30,000 pa in Cheam, Surrey, fetched £260,000.
AMP Asset Management raised £365,000 from its 2,325-sq ft shop on Commercial Street in Newport, Gwent. Let to Colourvision, it sold off a 9.3% yield.
