Grubb & Ellis is upbeat about the London contribution to last week’s sale, and has said that it will consider including the UK capital in further auctions next year, writes Rachel Frampton from California.
Ken Rossi, senior vice-president of Grubb & Ellis in Dallas, Texas, said: “The fact that we got some activity from London was pleasing and we expect to include it again.”
He added: “We have some five or six potential large auctions for next year and we would look at having an auction site in London probably on half of those.”
Just two of the 65 lots offered were eventually knocked down to London investors – but one of those bid through a representative in Dallas, while the other bid only conditionally. The latter had not been confirmed by Monday this week.
Rossi said that he was not disappointed with the London result. “We wanted to see what kind of appetite and interest there would be in London,” he said.
Auctions were more popular in Europe than they have been for some time in the US, Rossi said, but he added that US interest was increasing.
And he revealed that Grubb & Ellis had originally planned to include a Tokyo satellite link to the auction, but had abandoned the idea, partly because of difficulties in crossing international time barriers.
But he said the company was hopeful that its next international auction would include a link to Asia.
In Dallas, where last week’s auction was centred, there was “standing room only”, according to Grubb & Ellis agent Ken Shulman. He estimated that some 2,000 people attended the sale there.
“There were enough properties in the auction that were considered to be high profile to draw a large crowd,” he explained.
