Homes under the hammer are selling for around a third less than the price of an average property in the UK.
Even though the number of auctions hit rock bottom in July and money collected from sales fell 6%, the average property sold at auction was priced at an average £150,100.
The latest official UK property data set the average price of a home in June at £230,292.
The average home auction price for Scotland was £117,692, while in Wales, the figure was £114,592 and Northern Ireland posted £78,431.
Splitting out residential auction data for July posted by market monitor EIG, the number of lots offered was 4% down on a year ago at 2,699.
Lots sold also dropped 5.7% to 1,934, with 72% of properties selling – a decrease of 1.6%.
Total money raised at auction was down 5.9% to £290 million.
Only 107 auctions were held across the UK in July – 21 fewer than July 2018 and 72 down on the previous lows of 189 recorded in 2008 and 2011.
Data for the year to July 31, 2019, showed lots offered were down 7.3% to 25,398, with 18,714 selling – 9% fewer. Auction sales were down 13.4% to £2.7 billion from £3.1 billion a year earlier.
“With fewer auctions held it is perhaps no surprise to see lots offered and sold down on last year, both by 7% to 3,306 and 2,396 lots respectively. The total amount raised fell by 6% to £445.5 million – just over £27 million in monetary terms,” said EIG’s David Sandeman.
“One positive to take from the results is that the sale rate has remained broadly steady in the low-to-mid 70s throughout the past year, demonstrating that competitively priced properties continue to attract buyers.”
Maybe the “auction” average is dragged down by these?
* Properties with life (or other “secure”) tenancies;
* Ground rents / freehold reversions;
* land (with or without PP).
These (and some others) would not normally be handled by conventional estate agents – and (except for my first group) are not even “homes” so would not contribute to the data released by HMLR.
There’s also the fact that residential properties sold via auction tend to be in much poorer condition than those sold through estate agents. From what I’ve seen, such homes often sell for considerably MORE at auction than they’d fetch if sold in the same condition via an agent!
It’s a bit like comparing the average cost of an iPad bought on the high street with that of any touch-screen device bought from any source, including refurbished and second-hand.