Is there such a thing as a bad time to sell at auction? Well, yes, and historically there would be a month or two in the annual cycle where a sophisticated seller would hold back a lot or two and wait for a ‘hotter month’ to sell.
February was historically always a hot month to sell, whilst March was never a month to set the auction world on fire. February was the month for the auctioneers to set out their stalls and say the results from this auction will echo the results for the year to come.
You’d see all the post auction marketing calling for stock based on the number of lots sold and the amount raised, this is repeated throughout the year, but February is what makes it all happen.
The February to March period this year has been a respectable start to the year with 67 auctions aiming to sell 2,585 lots, of which 2,140 sold. A strong success rate of almost 83% raising in excess of £460m in the process. This represents a 10% increase on the amount raised from the same period last year.
When the data is broken down a little, it is evident that the bulk of this increase in growth stems from the commercial sector. To highlight this, we can say that the number of commercial lots (or lots with majority commercial use) went up by almost 48% from 251 lots last year to 371 lots this year. The total raised from this sector alone is up a little over 38% from £72m to a shade over £100m.
Breaking these figures down into regions, East Anglia, Northwest, Scotland and Wales all saw large jumps in the total raised at auction for this period, (Feb & March) with Scotland taking the ‘gold’ with an increase in total raised by almost 87% and the number of lots sold up by 90% with London walking away with the wooden spoon, with their total raised down by almost 6% and the number of lots sold down by 10%. Scotland takes the Gold because all of their stats show increased number of lots and amount raised, whereas London is down on all of those metrics.
In fact, London, alongside Yorkshire and the Humber, are the two regions currently measured by Essential Information Group to be in the negative for:
