Property auctions could be the key to getting your dream home
EVERYBODY loves a bargain and if auctioneers are to be believed, the best way to find an affordable home is to bid for one.
What does the UK property market currently look like?
From Southampton to Swansea, Belfast to Glasgow, there are property auctions happening every week – yet few of us even think of buying our next home through one.
This is partly because houses sold by auction are often in need of major refurbishment but also because many of us are scared at the thought of ending up with something we discover we don’t want.
Unlike buying through estate agents in most of the UK, once the hammer has come down contracts are exchanged immediately.
Auctions are becoming an attractive alternative for the mainstream property
You must pay a 10 per cent deposit on the day and complete within four weeks. The best homes to sell by auction, according to Cheffins’ Eastern Counties Property Auctions, are farmland and buildings, amenity land and paddocks, derelict or damaged properties or those suitable for refurbishment or conversion.
It’s also a good way to get a bigger market for development land and building plots. Some properties are also sold through auction by banks, receivers, executors and charities or government bodies.
If you want to sell a property, choose an auctioneer who knows the local market but advertises widely. And instruct early so there is time to catalogue well, take the best photographs and get your solicitor to prepare a comprehensive legal pack.
As for buying through auction, David Beddoe, director of the Bristol and West section of Auction House, says to use your common sense. His top tip? Go and look at the property.
“It is amazing the number of people who go to auction and bid on a property without ever having stepped inside,” he says. “Most people would not buy a pair of shoes without trying them on, yet they are willing to risk potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds on buying a property they have never even walked past.”
Paying for a survey will stop you risking your life savings, he adds, and reading the free legal pack is a no-brainer. He would also advise bidding yourself rather than using a remote bidding service because, “you can see what the competition is doing”.
And his most important advice is to know your limit: “Don’t get carried away and make sure, if there is lots of competition, that you are the first to bid your maximum price. You would hate to go home knowing someone else bought it for your maximum.”
You also need to have your finances sorted before the auction because of the four-week completion and if you’re selling you need to be able to move out by then. It’s this last part of the process that makes buying or selling through an auction much quicker than conventional ways.
“With auction offering as little as seven weeks from start of marketing to completion it is becoming an attractive alternative for the mainstream property you might ordinarily find in the window of an estate agent,” says Beddoe.
You can register with an auctioneer in the area you wish to buy to get property alerts and some companies, such as Auction House (0345 873 1366; auctionhouse.co.uk) and Cheffins 01223 213777; cheffins.co.uk), have sales in many regions.
Registering with Essential Information Group (01737 226150; eigpropertyauctions.co.uk), “the Rightmove equivalent for the property auction world” according to Beddoe, will give you access to an even bigger range of auctions.
Auction House Bristol & West has its next sale on September 21 at Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol, while Cheffins has auctions on September 27 and December 6.
But be warned: if you’re after a quick do-up and sell for a profit you may be disappointed.
According to Ian Kitson, Cheffins Auctioneers director: “The buyers who really benefit from auctions are not the ones who believe they can pick up a renovation property, spend a few thousand and sell it on, rather it’s those looking for a family home which they will live in for a number of years.”