Andrews & Robertson’s 21 April sale raised more than £22m from 84% of the 95-lot catalogue, one of the firm’s best results of the past three years.
James Norton, star of TV shows War & Peace and Happy Valley, attended the auction and was the underbidder on two car parking spaces in Peckham, SE15. The long leasehold spaces sold for £17,000.
There was also some real-life drama when a fire alarm forced attendees to evacuate the room at Hotel Russell, WC1, just as lot 30 was coming under the hammer.
Auctioneer Robin Cripp said the interruption did not seem to dampen people’s enthusiasm once they were back in the room.
He said: “I was a bit concerned from some of the reports that people aren’t buying, with stamp duty [increasing] and the Brexit vote looming. But it was a very good sale.”
One of the star lots was a 743 sq ft ground-floor office in a period building in South Kensington, SW7, guided at £750,000-plus, let to literacy agency Abner Stein for £30,000 pa plus a service charge.
All three of the main bidders were women, of whom one – an interior designer – bought it for £1.6m, a 2.84% gross yield.
The third lot of the day, a six- room house in Putney, SW15, was guided at £850,000 but its price jumped to £1m at the second bid. It sold for £1.3m.
Vacant flats and houses in Walthamstow, Plaistow and Forest Gate performed strongly, demonstrating the continued “big demand for east London”, said Cripp.
