Selling Property at Auction
If you are looking for a fast sale, or are looking to market your property to investors across the UK, selling property at auction can be a great way of selling your home. While an auction may not always be a suitable means of selling the average three-bedroom semi, it may be worth considering if your property has development potential or is:
• Unique, or at any rate highly unusual, and therefore hard to value
• Difficult to sell – perhaps because it is in a poor state of repair
• Of a type that is especially sought after
WHY SELL AT AUCTION?
An auction is a public sale and, if prepared properly i.e., with intensive marketing, advertising and mailing, will result in the greatest possible exposure of the lots offered. To maximise the effectiveness of the marketing, considerable thought must be given to the guide price, which if sensibly set will generate competitive bidding in the auction room, thus ensuring that the best price is being achieved.
Although some properties are more suitable for sale by private treaty i.e., through a conventional estate agency, selling by this method can often result in an agreement of a price, followed by a long period of time before contracts are exchanged. Often a sale by this method breaks down and the impact of the marketing is lost.
An auction sale has the effect of focusing the minds of potential purchasers. Purchasers, have the added benefit of knowing that there is a genuine intention on the part of the vendor to sell.
Selling property at auction enables you dictate the terms of the contract, which are printed in the form of the Special Conditions of Sale prepared by solicitors on your behalf. These conditions together with the auctioneer’s General Conditions and Notices to Prospective Buyers will form the basis of the contract. Nearer to the sale, and after advice from our Auctioneer, you will set a reserve price for the property you are selling. Therefore you will maintain control of the sale.
The auction method offers a high degree of certainty that a sale will be achieved on a given day. On the fall of the hammer at auction, there is an immediate binding contract. In this way, the uncertainty surrounding a sale by other methods is removed. The entire sale process, from instruction to exchange of contracts, can be achieved within as little as six to eight weeks.