In this article we are going to talk about the types of property you can buy from auction and how the makeup of the auctions has changed over the last five years.

The five-year timescale will allow us to take a look at pre-Covid, Covid and Post-Covid environments. I think that some of the revelations in this article may surprise you.

Acknowledgement and Appreciation: The data in this article has been provided by Essential Information Group and has been garnered from their most recent Property Auction Insight report - this is a free report that they produce on a quarterly basis. You need only sign up to their mailing list in order to receive it.

Let us start by looking at the most common types of property you can find at auction. I have split the ranking between Residential assets and Commercial assets.

Residential:
1. Terraced Houses: make up 39% of residential properties listed for auction.
2. Flats/Maisonettes: make up 27% of residential properties listed for auction.
3. Semi-Detached Houses: make up 16% of residential properties listed for auction.

Now whilst this may not surprise anyone, especially anyone who pays close attention to the auction market including local, regional and national auctioneers - here are some bits of data that will hopefully get you looking twice.

In terms of overall growth in the auction market, in relation to residential property, the asset class that has seen the greatest percentage of growth has been multi-let residential property. This is essentially HMO’s and blocks of flats, with the percentage increase being 66%.

If that sounds impressive, that 66% is just an increase in auction sales of that asset type. There will of course be HMO’s and blocks of flats that are listed and do not sell - so theoretically, the percentage
is even greater.