Barnard Marcus raised £9m from its first online auction, achieving a success rate of 61%.
The auction on 7 April saw 103 lots offered, with 62 finding buyers. A further 31 lots were withdrawn prior.
Auctioneer Christopher Glenn said the firm had been developing an online auction platform in association with Essential Information Group over recent months in order to offer sellers an additional route to market alongside its venue auctions held at the Grand Connaught Rooms, WC2, most months.
“We were due to roll this out in late spring this year, not as a replacement to our venue main auctions but as a complement and alternative for our clients,” he wrote on the firm’s website.
He added: “I never envisaged through all of those development stages that this online auction platform would now be so critical and enable our clients to continue selling by auction when a venue sale became impossible in circumstances such as we face now.”
Barnard Marcus initially planned to run the auction using live video streaming, but switched to a purely online sale once the coronavirus lockdown was announced. The EIG platform allows a bidding window to be overlaid on the auctioneer’s own website.
“People in the industry have been concerned about whether people would get used to online auctions, but people have found the concept quite engaging,” said EIG managing director David Sandeman. “It’s working for them, especially in these hard times. It’s the new normal.”
One key difference from many other online auctions is that Barnard Marcus is allowing registered bidders to bid on any lot and as many lots as they wish without paying a deposit upfront. This may be seen as a more hassle-free approach, perhaps replicating the spontaneity of in-room auctions more closely.
As with other auctioneers continuing to do business through the lockdown, the sale was significantly smaller than its recent in-room auctions. The March Barnard Marcus sale at the Grand Connaught Rooms, WC2, raised £30m from 161 lots sold from 220 offered. Its April 2019 sale raised £18m from 102 lots sold from 152 offered.
Sales highlights
- Successes included three vacant homes in the Old Oak area of Shepherds Bush, W12, which were sold on behalf of housing association Peabody. Two three-bedroom unmodernised houses with gardens, on Braybrook Street and Mellitus Street, achieved £415,000 and £481,000 respectively, while a one-bedroom flat on Fitzneal Street sold for £192,500.
- A three-bedroom riverside house in Guildford, Surrey, in need of refurbishment and with planning permission to extend was sold for £280,000.
- Three parcels of land adjacent to the Swan Valley business area in Northampton totalling close to three acres with possible commercial development potential sold for a total of £71,000.
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