The debut auction from a collaboration between Channel 4’s A Place in the Sun and Barnett Ross fizzled out when too few bidders attended the sale for a conventional open-bid format to occur.
“The bride was missing,” said APITS managing director Andy Bridge, who organised the 13 December event.
“We had a great central London venue, professional auction partners in Barnett Ross, committed Spanish developers and strong service partners to help potential bidders with their purchase. Sadly, the audience did not show up and there was no wedding.”
Fifty-six key-ready villas, apartments and townhouses located on the Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca, Costa Almeria and Costa Calida were on offer at London’s Radisson SAS Portman Hotel (21 November, p67).
“With only a small number of offers of €100,000 and above, it was clear that the anticipated interest was not there,” said Bridge.
“This was surprising as we had a strong marketing campaign that attracted 12,000 downloads of the catalogue. Unfortunately, that did not translate into attendees on the day.
“Maybe our audience finds the idea of an auction too intimidating or the properties did not appeal at their reserve prices. Maybe people think the market has further to drop.
“We will be contacting people who bought a hard-copy catalogue and downloaded legal documents for the properties before the auction to find out at what point they decided not to come and why.
“In today’s market you have to try new things and, unfortunately, this one didn’t work out as planned.”
