Auctions - will they ever be the same?

THE auction system that served property owners so well during the prolonged boom has well and truly run out of steam. Owners can no longer rely on a short sales campaign to throw up a few bidders, and estate agents are particularly wary of suggesting a sale by auction unless they have either a top rate property, or a strict deadline to meet.

It is taking punters several weeks to get their finance together, and only those with a large element of cash would be happy going into an auction room. There is no question of bidding away, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be able to offload another property in due course.

Then too, the whole notion of auctions is changing now that Allsops has appeared on the Dublin scene. The English company is noted for fire sales, that is, selling off properties that have been seized by banks who in turn just want to get shot of them. The big auction it is planning for Dublin on April 15th, in association with Irish agency Space, will set a new tone .Its 84 properties, the bulk of which have come from Bank of Scotland (Ireland), are there to be sold to the highest bidders, even if the published reserve is not reached. The level of interest so far suggests that there will be plenty of punters there on the day. According to Space’s Stephen McCarthy, there have been more than 70,000 visits to its online catalogue, with 60 per cent of the enquiries coming from Ireland, another 30 per cent from the UK and the remaining 10 per cent coming from various parts of the world.

Lending institutions are waiting to see what prices emerge from the auction as they see it as providing a new floor for both the residential and commercial markets.

Househunters see the chance of possibly picking up a bargain, though there are not too many attractive and well-located houses included in the mix.

If the sale works, Allsops will be coming back again, probably in the autumn. However, if auctions are to become associated with must-sell property, the big name agencies will have a problem to re-establish the auction system as the best way to sell a good home.