Clive Emson Auctioneers has listed the highest number of lots to date this year for its September auction – the sixth of eight for 2022.
Covering southern England, and ranging in guide price from £5,000 to £1.25m, the 162 lots comprise 57 vacant residential, 52 investments, 24 commercial, 17 land and 12 development/conversions.
The independent regional land and property auctioneers, in its 33rd year, also confirmed that its auctions will, for the time being, continue online by popular demand following client surveys.
James Emson, Managing Director, said: “We have an appealing range of lots listed in the September catalogue, from former fire stations and HMOs to churches and riverside locations.
“With our auctions averaging a healthy 80% sales success rate, it is apparent that buyers are looking to bricks and mortar, and land, to help deliver decent returns to try and offset the pernicious effects of record-high inflation on cash savings.
“Our latest auction features 162 lots, the highest number to date for the year, and we anticipate keen bidding.”
James added: “Our July auction received traffic from more than 40 countries, with bids coming in day and night, and so, from a ‘reach’ perspective, online is hard to beat – including the convenience of bidding from home or the office.
“However, we are developing a hybrid system which, when the time is right, will combine both the ballroom and online auction worlds together so that everyone is catered for. An overwhelming 80% of clients expressed a preference for remote bidding to continue.”
The auction ends on Wednesday, 21st September; bidding opens 48 hours beforehand.
Highlights include three £1m-plus properties.
A substantial HMO in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, has a guide price of £1m-plus, producing nearly £127,000 pa, equivalent to an inflation-beating yield of 12.7% before annual costs (lot 156).
Guided at £1.2m – £1.25m, Kent Fire Rescue & Rescue Service has instructed the sale of four vacant houses with 1.17 acres and development potential in Faversham (lot 153).
At a guide price of £800-810,000, the same authority is disposing of a former fire station on 1.69 acres at Broadstairs, within the modern Westwood Cross retail and commercial area (lot 17).
On 1.6 acres, and a short distance from the Hampshire coastline at Gosport, near Portsmouth, a fire-damaged former care facility is guided at £1m-plus (lot 100).
Producing nearly £21,000 pa are 17 garages in South Croydon with a guide price of £200-225,000 (lot 88) and nine vacant garages in West Byfleet, Surrey, at £125-135,000 (lot 157).
With frontage on the River Medway, a parcel of land in Maidstone, Kent, is guided at £40-42,000 and is described as a “rare opportunity” (lot 41).
Currently let at £22,200 pa, a two-storey property with two flats in Stratford, London, is guided at £350,000-plus (lot 7).
Chalked as having “re-development potential”, a former 13,550 sq ft community centre in Devonport, Devon, called Welcome Hall and owned by Plymouth City Council, is guided at £60-80,000 (lot 131).
Chosley Baptist Church, near Wallingford in Oxfordshire, has residential planning consent and is guided at £350,000-plus (lot 19). It is among four churches in the auction.
Executors have instructed the sale of a first-floor flat and garage in Milton Keynes, Buckingham; the guide price is £140,000-plus (lot 160).
For Downton Abbey fans, there’s an opportunity to purchase 1.4 acres of land 3.5 miles from Highclere Castle, where the hit TV series was filmed. The land is adjacent Pembroke House, Earlstone Common, Burghclere, near Newbury in Berkshire, and is guided at £70-75,000 (lot 73).
On the market for the first time in 58 years is just under 4.5 acres of land at a farm in Staplefield, Haywards Heath, West Sussex; guide price £75-80,000 (lot 101).
A residential access road in Colchester, Essex, is guided at £8-10,000 (lot 30).