Harman Healy held their first residential auction of the year at Kensington Town Hall in West London on 26th January. There were 81 lots on offer and in total 60 lots were sold raising £5,440,100 giving a 74% success rate for the auctioneer.

Not too many auctioneers will hold an event in January for a variety of reasons but auctioneer Nick McLachlan who co-held the rostrum hammer during the day felt their decision was vindicated by the results.

"We had a very busy room," said Nick. "Particularly in the first two hours with many people standing at the sides and at the back of the room. But we were not surprised at the good attendance figures and buying interest, as the prior viewings and online downloading of legal documents indicated healthy levels of interest for many of the lots on offer. All in all we felt it was a good start to the year and the prices achieved would have been welcomed by most vendors given overall market conditions."

"Obviously finance is still a stumbling block for many people but auction buyers can be quite resourceful in my experience, particularly if they feel some real value is to be gained from a successful bid and so they will search hard to get the finance to buy," Nick added.