Online saleroom proves virtually perfect for bidders

LAMBERT SMITH Hampton held its first online auction for commercial property last month and achieved a 100 per cent success rate. The portfolio of four Midlands ex-reservoir sites all sold, with one of them going for £221,500, beating the previous highest selling price for a Severn Trent Water ex-reservoir site (£90,000). LSH acted for Capita, on behalf of Severn Trent Water.

LSH launched an online platform to complement its existing successful ballroom auctions and partnered with Capita and Severn Trent Water for the inaugural sale. Interest for the lots was received on a local, national and international scale, with the eventual successful bidders being private individuals or small companies from within the region. Total raised from the sale was £451,750.

Oliver Childs, head of auctions for LSH, explains: “As online auction technology

Oliver Childs has improved, LSH decided the time was right to launch an online platform. This opens up the market to a much wider range of bidders, particularly individuals and local developers, who perhaps wouldn’t have been able to travel to an auction room or might have felt intimidated bidding in the traditional manner. Taking an auction online puts the bidder firmly in control in terms of privacy and convenience. This increases reach and competition, maximising the number of bidders and providing clients with robust selling prices.” Do not mourn the traditional auction room yet, however. Thanks to buy-to-let changes causing a private sales increase, Allsop Residential Auctions reports that 2015 was its most successful year yet. In its annual review of residential auctions, Allsop recorded a total of £445 million sold in 2015, a nine per cent increase on 2014’s record sales of £421 million. The auction house also registered a success rate of 84 per cent of residential lots sold, against a market average of 77 per cent.