The week of 24 to 30 August was the busiest of the summer so far: 2,073 lots were offered across the UK, up from 1,323 the week before. At the same time the median guide price stepped back from £160,000 to £120,000, and that pair of moves tells you exactly what kind of week it was. Last week’s numbers were pulled up by the commercial-heavy London catalogues of Allsop and BidX1; this week belonged to the big regional residential rooms, where volume is high and guides sit lower.
Thursday 27 August was the peak, with 704 lots offered in a single day, led by BTG Eddisons (168 lots), Auction House (110) and Future Property Auctions (99). Wednesday was not far behind at 548 lots, with Town & Country Property Auctions running 150 across its regional catalogues.
The week in numbers
- 2,073 lots offered at auction across the UK, the highest weekly count in this series so far
- £120,000 median guide price, down from £160,000 in the commercial-heavy week before
- 41% of lots guided under £100,000
- The £100,000 to £250,000 band held 40% of lots
- 67 lots carried guides above £500,000, of which 12 were above £1 million
Put those two weeks side by side and you have the auction market’s two faces: a commercial and London week lifts the median and thins the volume; a regional residential week floods the market with sub-£100,000 stock for investors and refurbishers. Neither number is a price signal on its own; the mix is the story.
The week’s biggest lots
The top of the market this week came through the regional rooms rather than the London commercial catalogues:
- The joint-largest guides of the week were two £2 million lots offered through Town & Country Property Auctions on Wednesday 26 August: the Frandon Hotel, 13 Beach Road, Clacton-on-Sea, a rare seven-figure coastal hotel lot, and the Haddockston Trout Fishery at Houston, Renfrewshire, in its Scotland catalogue.
- The same day, Town & Country’s Scotland and London catalogues carried further seven-figure guides: Morrison Street, Glasgow, at £1.7 million, and a lot at Staines-upon-Thames, Middlesex, at £1.5 million.
- BTG Eddisons guided 38 Shirlock Road, London NW3, at £1.45 million on Thursday 27 August.
Coming up
The next seven days have 1,922 lots scheduled at a median guide of £140,000, with the first big post-summer sales landing midweek. The rooms to watch:
- Auction House: 276 lots across its regional sales on 2 September, the largest catalogue of the week
- Savills: 156 lots on 2 September
- Pattinson: around 370 lots spread across daily sales from 1 to 4 September
- Future Property Auctions: 125 lots on 3 September
- Paul Fosh Auctions: 108 lots on 3 September
By location, London leads the coming week with over 80 lots, followed by Liverpool, Blackpool, Birmingham and Manchester.
Worth knowing: the hammer is the exchange
The single most important difference between buying at auction and buying through an estate agent is what the fall of the hammer means. In a traditional purchase, agreeing a price starts a negotiation that either side can still walk away from. At auction, the hammer is the exchange of contracts: the winning bidder is legally committed there and then, typically pays a 10% deposit on the day, and completes within 28 days (some rooms and online sales use different terms, which are set out in the conditions of sale).
That is why the preparation happens before the sale, not after. Financing, survey questions and, above all, the legal pack all need to be dealt with before you bid, because there is no cooling-off period afterwards. The conditions of sale in the pack can also carry extra costs, such as a buyer’s premium or a contribution to the seller’s fees, that change the real price of a winning bid. Read the pack, or have it reviewed, before you raise a hand.
Data: aggregated by Aedifai from publicly listed auction lots across UK auction houses. Guide prices are as published by the auctioneers; medians and counts cover lots with a published guide (2,056 of 2,073 this week).
