Savills raised £57m at its opening residential auction of 2014 – the highest total in the agent’s history – as first-time buyers showed up en masse.
Of 249 lots offered at the first top-flight residential auction of the year, 216 sold, with five sold prior and a further lot sold after, as Estates Gazette went to press.
It amounted to a success rate of 87%, higher than the 86% achieved at Savills’ December sale but marginally lower than the 2013 average of 89%.
Auctioneer and director Chris Coleman-Smith said: “The momentum over the last six months of 2013 has got stronger and stronger, and is now spreading to a fresh kind of buyer, which is helping us build up our market share. We are seeing lots of first-time buyers and amateur investors wanting to dip their toe into the water.”
The total has only been bettered three times since summer 2010 – all by rival auctioneer Allsop in 2013, which raised £59m at one sale and hit the £63m mark twice.
The result will be seen as a statement of intent from the Savills team, which dramatically narrowed the gap with Allsop in 2013, pulling in £322m across the year, compared with Allsop’s £336m.
It will also be welcomed as a ringing endorsement of the health of the auction market, which saw sales volumes jump from £2.7bn in 2012 to £3bn in 2013.
The highest price at the auction was fetched by the 150-year leasehold on an unmodernised vacant fifth-floor maisonette in Kensington, W8, which sold for £890,000 off a guide price of £750,000. It was sold by a property company to an investor planning a refurbishment.
Ten lots put up by Thames Water all sold, with a 0.26-acre development site in Peckham, SE15, selling to a developer for £585,000 off a £50,000 guide.
chris.berkin@estatesgazettes.com
