An Essex marina sold for more than £1m over its guide price at the latest Acuitus auction, which raised £54m from 67 lots, a 75% success rate.
The 7.4-acre property, which includes a 50-berth marina, 133 homes and shops producing £483,430 pa, sold for £6.6m, a 6.8% yield.
Auctioneer Richard Auterac said the marina had been a “complex” sale that involved close work with the clients, solicitors and joint agents.
The total volume of assets sold at Acuitus’ first three sales of the year is £170m – a 50% increase from the same period last year.
Auterac said: “There is little evidence that our buyers are being influenced by the EU referendum.”
Close analysis of individual sale results suggested “a significant hardening of yields as buyers lock into an improving secondary commercial market against a background of low returns in the bond market, volatility in the equity market and attractive bank loans for property purchases”, he added.
Auterac said that the strength of buyer demand was illustrated by the sale of two London retail investments. One, a Tesco Express in Highgate, N6, sold at £1m, a 3.8% yield, while a Ladbrokes-occupied building in Edgware, Middlesex, with self-contained offices above, sold for £870,000, a 4.8% yield.
Several regional properties sold well, including a 119,000 sq ft business park in Birmingham that sold for £3.3m, a yield of 7%. An Odeon cinema in
Canterbury, Kent, sold for £2.8m at a yield of 6%.
The auction took place on 19 May at Radisson Blu Portman Hotel, W1.
