Allsop started the new year with its biggest-ever single-day residential auction result, raising around £50m.
Auctioneer Gary Murphy said he was “delighted” by the result, adding that the hard work of his team helped produce it.
Around £20m of property from just 46 lots sold prior to last Wednesday’s sale, out of a 307-lot catalogue. Several of these were higher-value lots from vendors who, having witnessed a cooling in the market last year, were nervous that prices on the day may not be as high, Murphy said.
But on the day, prices held up well. “If there were any fears of that nature, they were unfounded,” he said.
The sale was held at a new venue, the Royal Garden Hotel. Around 1,000 people attended, and 85% of the lots sold.
On sale were several batches of lots sold on behalf of what Murphy called “some very high- profile clients”.
All 11 lots auctioned on behalf of BRB were snapped up, including a telephone exchange in Croydon that sold for £1m and produced a yield of 6.1%.
A number of lots sold by Rail Property raised £4.4m and Sainsbury’s achieved just over £500,000 on the sale of five properties.
Another £3m was raised for the vendor of a portfolio of flats above banking halls – with one post auction deal, all 27 properties were sold.
A local buyer, meanwhile, clinched a former telephone office in Taunton, sold on behalf of Telereal, for £2.25m. The 46,650 sq ft building, sitting on half an acre of land, is a mix of original and new construction.
Murphy said that the premises lent itself, in part, to residential conversion.
