By Bea Patel, Property Editor and Director of Shop for an Agent, the estate agent comparison site
Allsop, the UK’s market leader in commercial and residential property auction is set to change the landscape of purchasing new build and off plan properties globally. With over 100 years of industry experience, it has launched the country’s first online-only auction site for new build homes.
Gary Murphy, Allsop’s Residential Auction Partner said: “this new service provides a superior route of sale for new properties and will co-exist harmoniously alongside our traditional ballroom auctions. We identified a niche specifically in the new build market and felt strongly that there should be a simpler, more transparent, fair, convenient and certain way of investing in new homes.”
The user-friendly auction platform also offers an online community for the property sector. Transparency is a key concept, so it lets global investors see the whole selling process online –with no risk of gazumping or gazundering. Investors can observe the live market place, set the pricing, and be involved in the exact increases in bidding which are generally withheld in the traditional buying process.
“Seeing a 100% increase in internet bidding year on year at our live sale rooms, we have developed a concept that we believe addresses a proven demand for an online marketplace and extracts absolute best value for both developers and our customers,” said Gary.
The first development to be auctioned online-only is West Drayton Waterside from Clearview Homes. Properties are within a five minute walk of West Drayton rail station where the crossrail services will start from 2019, and will provide high speed access across London. An ideal opportunity for buy-to-let, high tenant demand is predicted, with prospects for huge capital and rental growth.
Stephen Murphy, CEO of Clearview Homes said: “When presented with the opportunity to be the first developers we didn’t hesitate. It is the perfect platform for our product which we believe will appeal to investors not just locally, but nationally and even internationally. We feel sure that this will be the future and are excited to be a part of it.”
Phase 2 auction starts from 10th June 2015 at 10 am. Bidders can watch live bids being placed and enter a fair market place, creating healthy investor competition and putting products on a worldwide stage. The bid closes from 10.05 am on Thursday 11th June 2015.
I asked Gary what Allsop hope to achieve from this first development being auctioned online-only. He said: “Primarily Allsop hopes to achieve maximum value for the seller through a fair and transparent process that will have enabled as many bidders as wish to take part to compete on a level playing field. Obviously a 100% success rate is our objective. If the auction goes as well as we expect it to, we believe that this method will be adopted by other house builders as well.
“Our original vision for this initiative was to open up bidding for quality residential stock to the widest global market. Up until now, new build homes have typically been offered off plan to overseas investors at international road shows on a first come first serve basis. We aim to harness that interest during a four week marketing campaign and allow all bidders a fair chance to buy on a single day. Simply, the highest bidders will win – regardless of who they are or where they might be.”
Allsop’s ‘How to’ video overview
Images courtesy of Allsop
