Allsop Commercial raised just over £52.8m at its most recent auction, with 79 of 105 lots selling – a 76% success rate.
Demand for alternative assets was high at the auction, with a total of 20 alternative assets going under the hammer at the sale, including two car parks let to NCP on leases expiring in 2037. A leasehold 325-space car park in Worcester city centre, which produces income of £220,408 pa, sold for almost £2.4m – a 9.26% yield – while a freehold 83-space car park in Newport, providing rent of £101,328 pa, sold for £1.9m – a 5.33% yield.
A total of nine lots sold for more than £1m, with two fetching above £3m. The highest price paid at the auction, held at the Berkeley Hotel, SW1, was for a Co-op supermarket in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex.
The 35,648 sq ft freehold supermarket, close to the local railway station, is let to the retailer until 2022 and provides income of £260,000 pa. The property also has potential for residential redevelopment.
It sold for just over £3.8m – a 6.5% yield.
Around £32m was raised from retail lots at the sale, offering an encouraging message to the sector.
One of the most hotly fought-over lots of the day was a Specsavers in Hinckley, Leicestershire, which sold for £636,000, almost double its guide price and reflecting a 4.7% yield.
A freehold office let in its entirety to London Business School on a lease expiring in 2023 also sold for more than £3m. The 3,149 sq ft office on Linhope Street, NW1, is close to both Regent’s Park and Marylebone station. The block provides an annual income of £127,500 and was sold off a 4.02% gross initial yield.
The highest-yielding lot of the day was a freehold shop investment in West Yorkshire. The 4,500 sq ft parade of three shops in Brighouse town centre sold for £300,000 – an 11.5% yield.
Partner and auctioneer George Walker said: “This auction demonstrates that investors are largely undeterred by the political chaos in Westminster and are still in the business of selling and buying property assets, albeit at the right price… Ultimately, the market is not prepared to wait until we have final and clear direction on the outcome of Brexit and investors will continue to compete for the right assets.”
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