Property Auction - none sold

Wig

I was attending the Peter Alan debut auction tonight in Cardiff. I thought the guide prices were way too high as soon as I read the catalogue 2 weeks ago. My guess is that they struggled to find any clients who would normally enter a property to auction, and as a result they asked all their current "on market" clients to consider auction, maybe gave them a discount on the entry fee or no fee at all, and reassured them with high reserves. I also think a lot of the audience were possibly the owners of lots.

There were just under 80 lots in total. The auction had no bids for 90% of the lots, a few lots did get an opening bid, and as far as I can recall only 1 lot had more than 1 bid, 3 bids I think. And the room was 80% full so it was not a lack of people. No lots were sold.

There was no point bidding because you knew the reserve would be set too high - judging by the guide prices. In general the auctioneer came down to half the guide price for each lot to try to get a bid.

I wasn't interested in any of the lots, as they did not fit my criteria, but I went along for a laugh, I expected it to be a failure but didn't expect the failure to be quite so spectacular.

I wonder if they will try again, lets hope if they do decide to try again, they put realistic guide prices, I suggest, should any of their team read this, 2002/2003, Q1, Q2 prices.

jamescredmond

do you have a link?

Dan29

PDF 1: http://www.peteralan.co.uk/uploads/publications/4.pdf

PDF 2: http://www.peteralan.co.uk/uploads/publications/5.pdf

hethmar

Blimey Wig, you must live near that auction house to get back so quick

Davesnave

Peter Alan is a very 'townie' agent,so I don't know their properties. They took over the rather rural Roderick Price a year or so ago, but there's nothing very countrified on their books now.

In the Welsh countryside there's still a lot of denial, but properties there can take ages to move even in the good times, so maybe nobody's noticed yet! After all, if you only see a viewer once every three months....

turbobob

The guide prices look rather high. I'd be willing to bet that they are pretty close to the asking price in a branch of Peter Alan....

In fact, as an example - Lot 41 - guide price at the auction £150,000. Asking price on Rightmove - £149,950. I don't really see the point.

mewbie_2

To be brutally honest about this, who outside of Wales would want to move there? Answer is very very few people. But during HPI, as the wannabee millionaires tried to buy property, they were gradually priced away from anywhere half decent and so ended up inflating prices in all sorts of God awful places. These prices are going to crash and burn big time.

No offence to any Welsh people, even those who choose to start speaking Welsh when a 'foreigner' comes into the Local shop.

jamescredmond

perhaps a half-hearted hope that there's still plenty of 'gullibles' out there.

the fact that there was zilch sales may prove that plenty are now appreciating the situation.

Wig

turbobob wrote: »

The guide prices look rather high. I'd be willing to bet that they are pretty close to the asking price in a branch of Peter Alan....

In fact, as an example - Lot 41 - guide price at the auction £150,000. Asking price on Rightmove - £149,950. I don't really see the point.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

That's so funny that you picked that one, it was virtually the only one that sparked my interest, but I couldn't believe the guide price and so I didn't even bother to view it. I wasn't so inquisitive to check their market value prices like you did, but you have clearly shown how daft the whole idea was, what were they thinking?

That particular house/lot was the one with 3 bids
80K
90K
92K (The auctioneer wanted to go to 100K but the bidder was having none of it :rotfl: )

That house last sold 17/12/2007 for £165,000 - no previous figures for it.
I keep having to pinch myself at the silly prices people were paying.

turbobob

If the vendors were there it must have been an eye opener for them - seeing bids stopping at absolutely nowhere near what they were hoping for _pale_

Chris2685

I think it is pretty mad to stick a house into auction with a reserve... Surely the point is to shift them? I can understand people not wanting to sell the house for a tenner, but putting really high reserves on seems to defeat the object of an auction for me!