Private investors continue to favour residential lots in the auction room, with Allsop posting an 86% success rate at its latest sale.
It was standing-room only at the 29 March sale at the Park Lane Hotel on Piccadilly, W1, as 183 of the 213 lots on offer sold, raising £36.6m.
A total of five properties with guide prices above £1m were on offer, all of which sold.
The largest lot of the day, a freehold end-of-terrace home in Holland Park, W14 (pictured), sold for £1.8m, off a guide of £1.3m-£1.5m, while a development comprising six new-build flats in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, sold for £1.1m – the top of its guide.
Auctioneer Gary Murphy said that there was a notable difference between the commercial and residential markets, with more and more private investors seeing safety in housing.
“There is fundamentally a pendulum swing to residential. People will always need a home to buy or rent and this is supporting the sector. However, there is a gulf developing between quality that is perceived as safe and as a non-risky buy and everything else in the commercial sector,” said Murphy.
He added: “With residential it is easier to spread risk and the prices adjust quite quickly to compensate for higher-risk purchases in the regions, where there is more volatility. The lot sizes are also smaller in general.”
Prices at last week’s auction averaged £199,000.
The average yield achieved on AST lots within the M25 was 6.82%, while ASTs outside the M25 sold for an average yield of 13.36%.
Residential in the regions was less attractive to investors, however, with Andrews & Robertson struggling to sell lots outside of London and the South East.
The 28 March sale at the Grand Connaught Rooms, WC2, raised £8.1m as just 44 out of 86 lots sold, including nine prior to the event.
Bidding was patchy, with offers for several regional residential lots struggling to reach guides.
London properties and others in the South East proved more popular with bidders, however.
