Allsop’s latest residential auction returned a 78% success rate despite the impending referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union.
Total sales were more than £63m from 245 lots sold, around £28m less than last May’s unusually large auction, but nearly £6m more than the firm’s last residential sale in March.
Auctioneer Gary Murphy said: “Everyone has been talking about the effect of stamp duty [rises for buy-to-let purchasers] and Brexit and whether that would affect confidence, and whether people would wait until the referendum was over.
“It just didn’t seem to have affected demand at all.”
A two-acre site in Mistley, Essex, containing a nuclear bunker with consent for conversion into three flats and another 28 homes nearby, and no affordable housing element, sold for £990,000 off a guide of £1.3m.
Lots in London sold particularly well, Murphy noted, highlighting a freehold mid-terrace house in Hackney, E9, that was sold by a housing association. Spread over 2,429 sq ft, with six bedrooms and views over Victoria Park, it was guided at £800,000 plus and sold for £1.5m.
A former Victorian asylum in Denbigh, north Wales, did not sell. Denbighshire council had been granted permission to compulsorily purchase the 300,000 sq ft derelict hospital, following a long dispute with the owners, Freemont (Denbigh) Ltd.
With a guide price of £2.3m, bids fell short of reserve and at the time of writing it was available for £2m.
The sale took place on 26 May at the Cumberland Hotel, W1.
