AUCTION RESULTS Auction highlights
Andrews & Robertson ran one of the strongest auction sales of September raising £22 million. Though London and the South
East remain firm favourites with buyers, an active pre-auction marketing campaign on a former Defence Estate’s site near Newquay with potential for redevelopment as a holiday site ensured that price was no barrier to investor appetite. Despite widespread talk of a double-dip, the star lot, Penhale Training Camp including a manor house and 91 buildings, sold for £1.510m from a guide of £625,000 following enthusiastic bidding. The 130 lot catalogue was
heavily weighted towards London and South East properties with many high yielding residential
investment and commercial lots situated in the North, West and East of the capital that stimulated competitive bidding from professional property investors with experience to sweat assets. Commenting on the market sentiment, Robin Cripp, senior auctioneer, said, “Our average price at this auction was £236,000 up from £206,000 in June which tells us that if you get the right pricing on the right lot which the market wants then there is tremendous bidding.
“Bigger property companies are
buying for long term investment and demand for regulated tenancy is particularly strong. We know there is a wave of negative sentiment in the market, for many would be buyers caution is a
watchword and funding is an issue. “But to raise £22m in the
current market is an achievement bettered by few other auction teams this month so we believe it demonstrates categorically that if the price is right the boys are there with the money.” A second lot to break the £1m barrier, offered on behalf of receivers was a mixed use leisure and residential investment, The Black Boy in Tottenham producing £293,000pa sold for £1.47m off a guide price of £1.45m. The Grand Connaught Rooms auction saw 78 properties out of 130 sell under the hammer, 10 others sold prior to the event. Demand for stock post auction was heavy and success rates are currently at 74 per cent.
TRAINING
Evolve training academy opens
The first Property Specialist One Day Training at Evolve Partnership took place in
September. At a 14th Century Barn in Southwick, near Portsmouth, 12 candidates received training on all aspects of listing a property. “We’ve run training before using
outside third party suppliers but the work we do is so specialist and quality is so important to us that we decided to start our own Training Academy,” David Brierley MD who has notched up three decades of estate agency and letting experience, “Even then, we recognise that certain things can only be taught by experts in their field – John Durrant, a regular contributor to PROPERTYdrum, has provided the professional photography training”. “It is imperative that properties
stand out on the portals, to do that we have to make sure that our photographs and floorplans are better than the estate agents could do themselves!” “With the stock to sales ratio
Once a military training camp this prime Cornish site could be a new holiday centre
BUSINESS ANALySIS Growing performance gap among estate agencies
New research from market analysts Plimsoll indicates that with 331 estate
agency companies in trouble, 383 others are powering ahead and a further 274 are set to be taken over – the market has never been more fragmented. David Pattison is the author of the new Plimsoll Analysis – Estate Agents. “Having rated 331 struggling companies as Danger and given 383 others a Strong rating, I am surprised at the gulf in performance in
the market. Despite all other factors, success still comes down to how well a company is run”, he explained. So what will be the consequence of this polarisation in the market will be, Pattison’s response is emphatic, “Acquisitions. The market, in the current economic climate cannot support this many companies. There has to be further, more radical consolidation in the market. Strong companies will be buying up distressed
competitors in the next 12 months.” Plimsoll analysed the top
1000 companies in the market and the following is a regional breakdown of how many have been rated as Strong, Danger and/or exposed to takeover by region, in the new Plimsoll Analysis. In the south east, where Plimsoll have monitored 40 firms, 15 are said to be in danger, 18 in a strong position and 11 are ‘exposed to takeover’.
www.plimsoll.co.uk
increasing by 25 per cent in the last month, not to mention the effect of a reduced work force coupled with holidays, estate agents need us to deal with the listing work whilst they promote and sell the properties. It pays for itself in the time saved and increased sales but that only works if we can be the best.” “Our Property Specialists are
also trained and regulated DEAs through the accreditation body Stroma, who were so impressed with our One Day Training Syllabus, they have allocated it 5 Continuing Professional Development hours – that’s half a year’s CPD in one day!” It has been such a success that
the next training day has already been booked. And Evolve are ‘evolving’ still further with 3D floorplans and CGI renderings of new developments, “It’s so sophisticated now that for apartments which come with furniture packs we can even include the actual lamp from IKEA in the CGI rendering from the catalogue number.”
PROPERTYdrum NOVEMBER 2010 7
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66