Osborne King auction in Belfast a bit of a flop

Yesterday at the Holiday Inn in Belfast, Osborne King held one of their now regular property auctions – the catalogue is here, the results are here and are summarised below. 18 lots were up for grabs though on the day, only 16 were offered as one was sold beforehand and one was withdrawn. As with the Allsop Space auctions in Dublin, Osborne King use the concept of  “maximum reserves” so punters know in advance the price above which a winning bid is guaranteed to get the property. Yesterday six of the 16 properties didn’t reach their reserves so overall the auction saw prices achieve being 33% above maximum reserves and a 63% success rate, considerably down on Allsop Space’s 90%-plus performance with far higher volumes of lots. Overall the result was also considerably behind the last Osborne King auction in Belfast in December 2011 when a 82% success rate was achieved and the overall sales total exceeded the maximum reserves by 8%. I don’t have a report from the auction floor yesterday but it seems that the secondary market in Northern Ireland might have a finite cash ceiling available to it, though another interpretation is that Osborne King’s pricing of maximum reserves this time round was not as accurate as last time (8% above max reserves in December 20111 when sales were achieved, 33% yesterday).