I haven’t posted recently as I was at the auctions last week. I went to three. Out of around 150 lots I had shortlisted a total of 10 properties I was interested in buying.
It was the first sale of 2019 for all three auction rooms so I expected they would be busy. I don’t usually attend the first-year sales as it’s not the easiest time to buy. However, there were some properties I was particularly interested in, so I went along.
The rooms were well attended and the first property I was interested in was the grade 2 listed I mentioned in my earlier post. Although I was not going to bid for this property, I was still curious who was going to stick their neck out and buy it.
As I expected there was not a lot interest apart from two couples who were bidding against each other. Pretty sure they were private buyers, but you can never tell.
What did surprise me though is it made £10,000 over guide bearing in mind this was an illegal conversion and it had to be put back to original condition.
In this auction I had shortlisted 4 properties to bid for. Every single one made well over what I was prepared to pay. In fact, I could not understand the prices they were paying because two of them could have been bought by private treaty from estate agents for less money!
Absolute madness. As I said earlier the first of the year sales is difficult.
The next auction had a property I was really interested in. It was owned by a hoarder and there were no internal viewings as it was a health and safety hazard. In other words, you were buying it blind. This was of course priced low, but I was hoping there were not many punters with an appetite for this risk.
Unfortunately, the bidding was brisk, and it made £40,000 over guide. Whoever bought that got carried away because for another £10,000 you could buy another house in the same street which was on its toes.
This is what happens in auctions. People get carried away and go way over what they had budgeted for.
So, to answer my question how many properties did I buy last week? The answer is none. Every auction far exceeded the guide price and there was no profit left in any of them. All that work for nothing.
However, let’s remember what I said earlier though. This is the property business and it’s a slow process. There are always other deals and next week I could end up buying the right property at the right money.
Till then
Trevor
