The UK auction market raised a staggering £3.3bn last year, down only 10% on the pre-pandemic total reached in 2019.
Full-year figures from Essential Information Group, released this week, show that lots offered dropped 21.5% to 22,708, while lots sold fell 19.5% to 17,628. The bulk of sales were held online owing to Covid-19 restrictions from 20 March.
Residential held up well, with the sector raising £2.5bn at auction, down 8% year on year. Commercial saw a steeper drop of 16% to £818m.
Figures for December show that the total number of lots offered and sold across both sectors declined by 12% and 14% respectively. However, the amount raised was up 2% year on year to £435.4m.
Residential, buoyed in part by the stamp duty exemption, drove this improvement, raising £328m, up 6.7% on December 2019. Commercial saw a 9.3% drop in total raised to £107m.
Managing director David Sandeman said the quarterly figures showed that October through to December had been particularly tough for the commercial sector. The total raised dropped almost a quarter to £227.3m.
“Notwithstanding the fact that we are currently in lockdown, with the rapid roll-out of the vaccine, let’s hope that we can start to return to an increasing degree of normality within a couple of months and that, as an industry, we can start to make up some of the lost opportunities,” he said.
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