Largest property auction ever in progress in Ireland – results and analysis

The fourth Allsop Space auction is being held in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin today. A total of 109 properties will be available on the day, three having been withdrawn beforehand from the original 112-lot catalogue (available here). The auction is understood to be the biggest property auction ever in Ireland by reference to the number of lots coming up for sale. The maximum reserves for the 109 properties total €9.98m which is lower than previous Allsop Space auctions reflecting the nature of the lots, and possibly more aggressive valuations following the surprise at the number of unsold properties at the last Allsop Space auction in September 2011 (results and analysis here).

This is an interim blogpost at 1pm after 37 lots were offered. There will be a final blogpost once the auction has ended later today – I’d guess the auction will finish at around 5pm.

The auction room at the Shelbourne Hotel on St Stephen’s Green was packed again with punters and gawkers overflowing onto the stairs and ante-rooms. The mood was business-like, the novelty and mania that accompanied the first Allsop Space auction in April 2011 (results and analysis here) have long disappeared and it as if we have been used to the spectacle of Allsop Space auctions for years. The pre-marketing, transparency and conduct of proceedings on the day with live video streaming, results and online bidding have certainly shaken up the Irish property auctioning business.

So in overall terms at this interim stage, 37 lots were offered for sale, with two lots that appeared in the original catalogue withdrawn. Four lots out of the 37 were unsold with the maximum bid not reaching the reserve, in some cases by just €1,000. Of the 33 lots that did sell, the maximum reserves totalled €3,085,500 and the sale prices totalled €3,943,000 which was 27.8% above the maximum reserves. Here’s the interim detail

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The concluding results and analysis will appear here later.

UPDATE: 30^th November 2011. The auction concluded just before 5pm. All in all, the Allsop Space team delivered another well-run auction. Of the 112 properties in the original catalogue, four were withdrawn and weren’t offered for sale. 12 went unsold after bidding had finished, but two lots – numbers 44 and 88 – subsequently sold. Based on the 12 lots that went unsold after bidding had finished, Allsop Space achieved an 89% success rate, which is very impressive indeed considering the number of lots involved in what is understood to be Ireland’s biggest ever property auction. The 96 lots that sold achieved prices which in were in total 28.3% higher than the advertised maximum reserves. The success rate is better than the September 2011 auction. The prices achieved overall – there were exceptions – seemed to me to point to a further weakening in what were fire sale prices and pointed to declines from peak asking prices of around 65-70%.. There will be more analysis tomorrow.

(Click to enlarge)