Continued uncertainty as a result of the Brexit shambles is proceeding to impact sales rates at auction.
While Allsop may have seen demand for income-producing assets at its most recent sale remain resilient, success rates dipped from its usual levels to 68%.
The sale raised a total of £62m. On the day, a total of 15 assets sold for upwards of £1m, of which five were mixed-use.
This included lot 83, with the ground floor let on a new 10-year lease to Starbucks on Kentish Town Road, NW1, with four flats above. The lot sold for £2.5m, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.7%.
Allsop said that the security offered by long-let assets continued to attract significant attention, with nine lots selling at better than 5% yields. Following a competitive round of bidding, lot 7 – a bank let to HBOS in Rushey Green, Catford, let at £38,500pa – sold for £790,000, reflecting a net initial yield of 4.6%.
The largest lot of the day was St Davids Court in Wolverhampton, a 41,974 sq ft soft multi-let office building, benefitting from a spread of 11 tenancies, which sold for £3.4m – a 9.1% yield.
One of the most competitively fought-for lots on the day was lot 14, a former NatWest bank in Northwood, which sold for almost £1.6m – more than twice the original guide price – and was bought by an owner-occupier.
Demand for high street retail assets is inconsistent, although five of the lots that were sold for more than £1m were retail. This included the Roebuck shopping centre in Newcastle under Lyme, which achieved almost twice its guide price, with the hammer coming down at £980,000 – a 30% gross yield.
Allsop partner and auctioneer George Walker said: “Achieving a £62m sale with all the current uncertainty in capital markets and a total lack of leadership from Downing Street is very positive.
“Private investors remain keen to buy the longest let assets, mixed use and development opportunities, as they have shown, but are exercising more discretion than ever in the retail sector.”
Allsop’s next commercial sale takes place at the Berkeley Hotel, SW1, on 9 July.
