The first of five planned Allsop/Space auctions for 2012 is scheduled for next week. FRANCES O'ROURKEgets a glimpse backstage with Allsop auctioneer Gary Murphy and below EDEL MORGANpreviews some of the properties that are being lined up for sale
ALLSOP/SPACE’S first mass auction of properties in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, last April “was more buzzy than I’ve seen in my whole career,” says Gary Murphy, the silver-tongued UK auctioneer who conducted all four Allsop/Space auctions here last year.
“As soon as the first lot was offered, hands went up everywhere and I thought ‘this is going to be a good day’. ”
And it was: all the lots sold, either on the day or just after. “I’d only done that once before,” says Murphy, who has been an auctioneer for 27 years, when he joined his father’s firm in London before moving to Allsop to build its residential auction arm in the midst of a 1980s recession.
Now, he says, Allsop/Space is here for the long term: it has five auctions planned for 2012, the first one kicking off next Thursday.
Over four packed auctions between April and December 2011, 96 per cent of 340 lots – 80 per cent of them residential – sold, bringing, Murphy says, transparency to a property market where information is a scarce commodity.
Thus when asked if prices are falling, he’s confident saying that “the price of good apartments producing an income in the centre of Dublin now appears to be stable. We’re getting the same price at each auction. Yields are between 8-12 per cent; it’s a benchmark.”
There will be no shortage of properties to sell, he says. “I think we’ve just scratched the surface: it’s a question of getting the right stock at the right price.”
Allsop/Space discussed its plans with banks here in the year before it launched its first mass auction, and is understood to be selling properties on behalf of the Bank of Scotland, although Murphy will not confirm this.
He is sympathetic to people who protested at Allsop’s recent auctions but says there are very few repossessed properties in its sales.
“Selling properties on behalf of receivers would be different, however.”
One of the keys to the success of the mass auctions was establishing record low reserves – and guaranteeing that the properties would sell once they had reached them.
How did they hit on a reserve of €7,500 for a cottage in Leitrim which grabbed headlines when the March 1st auction was announced?
“We look at properties, try to get comparisons. It has to be a no brainer price, the ‘I’d buy it for that’ price. The problem is getting the vendor to agree.” About 30 per cent of vendors in its catalogues are private sellers.
“When you set the maximum reserve, it has to be lower than the price you expect to achieve, to provoke competition. But we pledge that a property will be sold when it reaches that reserve price.”
Over four auctions, 76 per cent of properties sold at or above the reserve, and 72 per of sales were to cash buyers. The auctions have attracted attention from a global market, with 140 registered bidders from abroad.
“Twelve per cent of overseas bidders – from countries ranging from Australia to the United Arab Emirates to South Africa – were successful.
Auctioneering is in Murphy’s genes: he has been on the rostrum since he joined Hillyer’s, the London firm his grandfather had founded. He joined Allsop, a 104-year-old firm, in 1986, building its residential department on the back of large country houses. Then, in the recession of the late 1980s/early 1990s “we talked to Halifax and pioneered the sale of repossessed properties by auction. We’d have two-day sales, selling 400 lots a day”.
He enjoys auctions enormously, saying “I’m a bit of a show-off.” He says he can spot who’s an investor, who’s a first-time buyer by looking at his audience, and that every bid is a little negotiation, a bit like tennis. He says he particularly enjoyed the Irish auctions “because of the characters in the room; and it’s nice to see people enjoy buying property. An auction is a great way of focussing people’s attention.”
AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS WHAT’S ON THE CARDS
A DETACHED new four-bedroom showhouse in Drogheda with a reserve of €128,000, four apartments in a south county Dublin development, Meadow Court in Blackrock, with prices ranging from €90,000 to €170,000, and a house of bedsitters in Crumlin with a yield of 28 per cent – the highest in its catalogue – are amongst properties included in next Thursday’s Allsop/Space auction.
Some of the properties failed to sell in Allsop’s recent auctions and have dropped their reserves: the reserve on a two-bedroom apartment for sale in Meadow Court, Stillorgan Park, Co Dublin, has cut its reserve price from €240,000 to €170,000 for next week’s sale.
“We’re learning about prices as well,” says Allsop/Space’s Robert Hoban.
The auctioneers are confident that next week’s auction in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin will again attract crowds.
There are 100 lots in the sale, of which about 74 per cent of the properties are residential. Fifty per cent of the 100 listed for sale are being sold with tenants in place and nearly half the lots are in Dublin.
While 68 per cent of the sales are on behalf of receivers or liquidators, about one-third of the sellers are private, people who in some cases have had their houses on the market for a couple of years says Hoban.
According to Hoban, three of the most talked about properties – the ones that made headlines a few weeks ago, when the agents announced the auction – are being sold on behalf of private individuals.
Lot 55, a cottage at Drumcannon, Carrigallen, Co Leitrim which has a reserve of €7,500; lot 67 the Watermill, Rathvilly, Co Carlow, a millhouse, with a reserve of €150,000; and lot 54, 41 Seville Place, Dublin 1, which is set at €35,000.
“All were frustrated with the arduous process of having tried the private treaty market with no success. All had been on the market for a long time, with numerous offers received, but none progressed. Each are very keen to establish open market value with hopefully the certainty of signed contracts.”
He says a large number of the receivership properties have tried the private treaty market without a signed contract emerging – most notably, the Sandhouse Hotel in Donegal, which was on the market for three years without success. “Many eyes will be watching to see how it fares.”
