It will be the 6th July, 2012 when past masters of auctioning on this Island, Allsop Space hold their next property auction at the Shelbourne Hotel inDublin and when 90 Lots will be offered for sale. But on the other side of the Border,Northern Ireland estate agency and auctioneer Osborne King is maintaining a tidy standard.
Last week on 14th June, it held a small auction at the Holiday Inn onOrmeau Avenue in central Belfast where 17 Lots were advertised. One was sold before the auction, and on the day 11 Lots sold for GBP 885,100 (€1,097,000). Osborne King, like Allsop Space, operates so-called “maximum reserves” which are prices above which the winning bid is guaranteed to get the Lot. The total maximum reserves was GBP 748,000 meaning the achieved prices were on average 18.3% above. Five Lots didn’t reach their reserves, though two – Lots 10 and 14 – both sold after the auction. Based on the 11 Lots that sold during the auction, there was a success rate of 69% which isn’t bad at all, though still short of Allsop Space’s 90%-plus on far higher Lot volumes.Yields based on actual and potential rents ranged from 8-18% with an outlier of 30% for Lot 4, a small shop on My Ladys Road in Belfast which yielded 30% or GBP 4,000 rent per annum on a GBP 13,500 value shop.
The auction was of a mix of residential, commercial and development property, some foreclosed but most seemingly not. The catalogue is here and the results are here. The Belfast Telegraph has a brief report on the auction here.
Overall, a tidy result for what seems like a tidy operation.
It’s worth saying that unlike Allsop Space, it is seemingly possible to buy Osborne King Lots before the auction, which some might say undermines transparency, and Osborne King also uses “potential rents” which will hopefully be more than the glint in a landlord’s eye, but are obviously not as sound as actual rents.
What does the auction tell us about Northern Ireland property? Not a great deal, there is cash available chasing high-ish yields.There is no evidence that Northern Ireland’s residential property crash – which exceeds our own in real terms and looks as if it is world-beating – is showing signs of recovery
The next Osborne King auction is scheduled for 22nd November 2012 with a closing date for entries of 11th October, 2012.
NAMA Wine Lake 
Land prices now down by nominal 95% in some place. This site is only about 25 miles from Belfast and very handy to the motorway.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18513074
Lot 17, Townsend Street, at the bottom of the Shankill Rd,which sold for £125k last week, seems to have previously been on the market for “offers in the region of £1m”
http://www.estatesgazette.com/propertylink/advert/residential_land_property_freehold-40_50_townsend_street_belfast-3397627.htm
Rental income as car parking is given as £45k pa in this link : http://www.propertynews.com/Property/Antrim/HESHES2674/Site-Townsend-Street-Shankill-Road-Belfast/