Online property auctions are the exciting new development for buyers and sellers. It gives both the traditional benefits that auctions have always offered, together with greater flexibility.
Selling a property at auction is a great way to maximise the price you achieve through the competitive bidding it generates.
Additional benefits an auction sale brings are transparency, cost effectiveness and certainty to both sellers and purchasers.
There are many possible advantages including:
Below is an overview for Sellers and we’d be delighted to answer any more detailed questions you may have.
Successful results are achieved for a wide range of properties, whether they are vacant or let, residential, commercial, mixed use or land with and without development potential. If we feel that your property is not suitable for auction, or you may get better results by a different method of sale we will tell you.
Whilst in some instances auction may be the only viable sale route if there are problems such as defective Title, missing information, poor condition, problematic tenants etc., most auction properties have no such issues. Sellers and buyers simply prefer the certainty and simplicity of the process.
Our team of experts can advise you on:
The most important step is agreeing an appropriate guide price and reserve price (the minimum price which we can sell the property for).
Our free no obligation auction appraisal will tell you a realistically achievable reserve and estimate the likely selling range. We can give you an initial view very quickly and when you contact us it would help us to have the following information:
We will also confirm our fees, the best method of auction sale (traditional in room or online auction unconditional or conditional) and the most appropriate auction date.
If you are happy to proceed we would arrange an appointment to inspect the property to make sure our advice is correct, prepare our marketing details and take photographs as necessary.
At this point you also need to instruct a solicitor to prepare the Legal Pack for the property. We’ll contact them also to make sure they have the information to produce it in the required format.
The draft particulars will then be sent to you to check for accuracy and approval before we commence marketing.
We will then publish the property particulars on our website together with other property portals such as Rightmove and potential buyers on our marketing lists will be contacted. We will also promote the auction as we feel appropriate with local, national press and trade journal advertising, together with digital marketing and press releases.
We’ll implement the marketing and sales strategy agreed with you, conduct viewings and negotiate with any parties making pre-auction offers.
You’ll be provided with regular updates with an overview of interest levels. Our expert team will let you know if any pre-auction offers should be accepted and by monitoring interest they will let you know if the guide price and reserve should be adjusted.
We’ll monitor everything for you and will make sure you get the advice you need for a successful result on the day.
All potential Bidders are authorised before the auction, subject to them providing money laundering ID and ancillary information. They are also required to provide in advance card details to provide a bidding security deposit, with a hold put on the funds allowing automatic debit from the account of the winning Bidder.
The online auction will close at the agreed date and time. During Bidding you can view how much interest your property is generating and once bidding starts, how many Bidders there are and the progress of bidding.
An extension of a further 60 seconds is automatically added should a bid be made within 60 seconds of the scheduled closing time to avoid “sniping”. This process emulates what happens in a traditional auction where effectively Bidders are given a fair warning the property is about to sell. Where there are active bids, the auction will not end until 60 seconds has elapsed without any additional bids helping ensure you get the best price.
Subject to the highest bid being over your reserve you will have a legal agreement relating to the sale of your property. Depending on the method of sale a deposit or reservation fee will be paid by the purchaser.
If you have chosen the non-conditional auction route exchange is immediate, with completion usually 28 days after (or as otherwise varied by you) or if choosing a conditional auction sale exchange is normally within 28 days, with completion to follow typically 14 to 28 days after that.
Once the deposit is cleared we’ll retain any fees agreed with you and send the balance to your solicitor, who will then deal with matters through to completion of the sale.
A small percentage of properties don’t sell, but don’t worry as we’ll continue to work hard to try and secure you a sale. We will market your property for the agreed agency post auction period (typically 8 weeks) and you can decide whether to accept any post auction offers or consider entering a future auction.
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