By Emanuele Midolo

Auction sales soar in September

The amount of money spent at auctions in September was up 15.5% on last year, according to data from Essential Information Group (EIG).

A total of £451m was transacted across commercial and residential auctions, which according to EIG was the largest September total in a decade and £61m higher than the £390m raised in September 2016.

A total of 3,793 lots were offered across 162 auctions last month - 4% up year on year - of which 2,857 were sold (+9%).

In the residential sector alone, the number of lots offered rose 6.7% to 3,371 and the number of lots sold rose 11% to 2,546 - the largest volume of September sales recorded since 2012. Revenues were up too, from £342m in 2016 to £403m this year.

In the commercial sector, the number of lots offered fell 13% to 487 and the number sold fell 7.7% to 311.

EIG managing director David Sandeman attributed this unusually low number of commercial lots to an anomaly of the auction timetable.

“One shouldn’t read too much into the [commercial] figures as none of the major commercial London auction houses had a sale last month,” he said.

“We are simply seeing fluctuations in the volume of commercial lots offered by residential auctioneers across the regions. We’ll get a much better gauge of progress next month.”

Results for Q3 as a whole were also strong, despite a 1.6% year-on-year fall in lots offered to 8,332. Sales volumes were up 3% to 6,323 lots and the overall amount raised was £1.06bn, up 11% year on year.