Allsop’s July commercial auction raises over £70.5m amidst strong appetite for retail assets

• Total of 81 lots sold, 31 of which went for £1m or more
• The biggest lot sold was a listed bank building in Edinburgh, for over £3.6m

Allsop’s July commercial auction raised over £70.5m, demonstrating a substantial increase on July 2020 and bringing the total for 2021 so far to £312m, with an overall success rate of 90%. Retail assets accounted for a significant proportion of the properties sold on the day, raising £54m – a testament to increasing investor demand for this asset class, which has been on the rise since the start of the year.

George Walker, partner and auctioneer at Allsop, said: “We’re pleased to end the first half of the year on a high note, raising a total of £312m for 2021 to date. As domestic buyer confidence strengthens, we’re also starting to see more interest from foreign investors, who bought almost 10% of the lots presented in the July catalogue. As the UK lifts nearly all of the remaining restrictions, we expect domestic buyers to continue buying with confidence, especially as we’re seeing growing volumes of yield-hungry foreign capital in the market.”

Key highlights include:

Lot 40: a listed bank building in Edinburgh City Centre extending to 14,477 sq ft fully let to TSB Bank Plc, sold for over £3.6m prior to the auction (NIY 7.5%)

Lot 33: a freehold building in an affluent north London suburb of Southgate let to Boots UK Limited. Originally guided at £1.2m, the lot was sold at £1.76m (NIY 2.9% — an unusually low yield for a rack-rented retail asset) following a fierce bidding battle between two investors

Lot 30: two units on Hounslow High Street, London, spanning 15,575 sq ft, entirely let to HSBC Bank Plc, with potential for redevelopment and change of use, sold at £3,500,000 (NIY 4.96%)

The next commercial property auction will take place online on 23 September 2021.