February Property Auction Market Update

Market Hibernates, Not Unexpected

What happened at the residential property auctions in the first month of 2025? In this update we will take a closer look at current trends in sales volumes, percentages sold, amounts raised and other interesting trends.

Number of lots offered

The first month of every year is usually one of the slowest months for residential auctions – if not the slowest. Quite a number of auction houses opted not to have a sale this January. In particular there was no Barnard Marcus sale. As this auction house normally has one of the largest sales by lot numbers this is bound to have affected January’s figures.

Lot numbers were well down in January 2025 in line with seasonal trends. Less than a thousand were offered at the sales we track – well under a third of the numbers offered in just three weeks in December 2024. Of some interest, however, was that lot numbers were around 12% up on January 2024 and almost 50% up on January 2023.

Percentages sold

The percentage of lots sold at the auctions we track dropped back slightly this month compared to December. 69.4% of all lots offered found a buyer on average, compared to December’s 72.5%. It was also a slight drop from the 73.4% of properties sold in January 2024. This sales rate was probably reasonable enough, however, given the time of year.

Amount raised

The amount raised at residential auctions was the lowest raised in any month over the last 12 months at just £130m. This was 27% of the amount raised in December and around a third of the long term average over the last year.

It is definitely worth noting though that January 2025’s amount raised was a third more than that raised in January 2024. It as also around treble – yes treble – the amount raised in January 2023.

Average amount per sale

The average price of a house bought at auction in January 2025 was a shade over £202,000. This was pretty much unchanged from the previous month. It reflects the wider market where residential prices are fairly stable.

Comment

Speaking in their latest Residential Auction Outlook, Richard Adamson, Partner & Auctioneer at Allsop offers some thoughts on what the market could be like in 2025. He says : “The market environment in 2025 should not be too different from 2024. Rates will likely remain on the downward trajectory, but any decreases will be slow and incremental.

“With many businesses now facing an additional burden of higher employee national insurance contributions and increases to the minimum wage, some will have no choice but to pass these additional costs onto consumers, which will make it difficult to rein in inflation. How that will impact the Bank of England’s monetary policy remains to be seen, but we expect a busy 2025 due to our buyers’ willingness and ability to transact in cash and, of course, the fact that we’re a nation obsessed with property.”

Summary

In summary, January is always a slow month in residential auctions. Whether it is because there are actually few buyers and sellers, or whether auction houses don’t think there will be, is difficult to say. Either way, January isn’t a great month for spotting market trends over the year.

What is of interest however is that, modest though January 2025’s figures were, they were well up on the returns in both January 2023 and January 2024. The January market was much livelier than in recent years. That might tell us something about the general state of the property market at the moment.

Looking ahead, it seems clear that key factors affecting the auction market this year are going to be the inflation rate and the interest rate. The next Bank of England interest rate decision will be announced at noon this coming Thursday.

Check out our monthly updated statistics below, courtesy of the Essential Information Group (click on the key colours to highlight / dehighlight):