Auction Legal pack data that will change the way you bid for property at auction…
Let us start by giving the biggest shout out to Essential Information Group (EIG), who if you don’t know who they are, I will be sharing links to their website and to the report that I will be referencing heavily in this article. If you are interested in auctions and serious about buying or selling (or both to flip/ trade) then you cannot do it seriously unless you are on their site! (We are not sponsored by EIG and this is not a paid for advert… we’re just big fans).
For years and years, we have been operating under certain assumptions. We’ve assumed the following metrics around legal packs and buyer behaviours; 1. We assume that buyers read the legal pack (or have their solicitor do so) before bidding at auction. Ok so this is a lie, but now we know the percentage of people that do. 2. We assume that legal packs are uploaded with plenty of time to spare, so that we as buyers can do adequate due diligence before the auction. Ok so this is also a lie, but now we know the average timings and makeup of an auction legal pack. 3. We assume that the special conditions of sale (the second most important document in the legal pack) will be uploaded first. Ok, ok liar, liar, pants on fire… no one expects this! But now we have the data to back us up. So, let’s get into it…
EIG releases a quarterly report and the subject of the report differs from time to time. The most recent report starts with a year-on-year review comparing 2022 with 2023. Then it moves on to focus on 2023 yields, plus regional analysis with an update on material Information.
The juicy bit that is the subject of our article is going to be the data on auction legal packs. 35.9%...I’ll let that just hang there for a moment. 35.9% is the percentage of auction bidders who do not look at the legal pack. For everyone reading this, that’s a very high number and one hopes that if you are reading this, you are not part of the 35.9%. This figure comes from a dataset of 18,000 properties that went to auction in 2023, so the sample size is certainly meaningful.
