Auction

rob_kzk

Hi All,

A bit of advice needed please!

If I was to put my flat up for auction how would I go about it? I've been looking for local auction houses (Northampton) but there's nothing around here really so would it be possible to go to a national auction?

Also, is it possible to put a reserve price on the flat as in any other auction?

One last thing, what sort of costs would I be looking at to auction a property?

Cheers

Rob

ahll

As I understand it you can put your house up for Auction with any company in any location you want. Yes you can set a reserve price for you property.

As for the cost that will depend on the Auction house you use.

FatJock

Hi,

Not sure if this is of interest to you but I know (for Northampton) that CHOWN auction properties. I have nothing to do with them but their number is 01604 604050.

I only know this because I've enquired about buying a property at auction.

Hope this helps.

rgds
FatJock

vansboy

A friend of ours is doing just that - but it's a house needing extensive work & in Wales (he's in Cambridge), so I'm guessing a bit different to yours.

He's had a £600 catalogue fee & set a reserve price & must pay 2% commission & even if he were to sell it himself before the auction, or within 28 days after (if it didn't meet reserve) he still pays the 2% to the auction company.

The figures are + VAT, too.

Auctions don't offer 'bargains' it seems, just a real market price. Around 10-15% less than conventional selling methods, it seems.

So unless you are desperate. best sticking with traditional ways.

& to answer your Q, WH Peacock in Bedford are localish, to you. Otherwise Barnard Marcus or one of the other BIG names, cover all areas.

VB

Doozergirl

What's your reason for wanting to sell at auction? Are you already on the market?

What sort of reserve would you be looking at setting compared to your current asking price? You might find that you're better off dropping your asking price accordingly.

Unless your flat is non-mortgageable or particularly 'different', then I'd go for regular selling methods every time.

rob_kzk

Thanks for all your responses, they've been very helpful.

Doozergirl - my situation is that at the moment I've got two mortgages and I need to get rid of my flat asap.

We had a buyer for the flat and were in a chain, but just before exchange the buyer pulled out and we didn't want to lose the house so we took the option to carry on with the transaction using other finances.

We've now got another buyer for the flat and this sale has been going on for over 9 weeks (it's a FTB moving into an empty flat - how complicated can it be?!). This buyer is now dragging her heels and bringing up damp in the cellar and all sorts of reasons to string things out even longer and as I said before we need the equity in the flat.

I was thinking of putting the flat up for auction as as I understand it once the flat sells at auction contracts are exchanged and we will be put out of our misery of all this waiting around and relying on other people (as well as having to put up with all the lies and half truths!).

Rob

seven-day-weekend

It's very stressful waiting for the sale to go through. We were in a similar situation to you (conveyancing taking ages) and also thought of selling at auction. But we didn't and the flat sale went through a few weeks later, and we ended up with more money than we would have had at auction.