The final Acuitus commercial property auction of 2023 raised £10m and brought the total volume of assets that Acuitus has sold during 2023 to £175m with an average lot size of £717,000.
Acuitus Chairman, Richard Auterac commented: “Bearing in mind the continuing political, economic and financial turmoil this year that has led to considerable disruption in the wider property market with declining transactional volumes, our results have been resilient. For comparison, our 2022 sales were £184m with an average lot size of £810,000.
“As the commercial property auction market is able to capture transient private equity it has remained one of the few areas where there is liquidity and transactions continue to take place within defined timescales.
“Investors have been active across all commercial property sectors in the UK and there has been particular demand for assets which offer strong income flow or whole or partial conversion to residential.
“Our Acuitus investors have sufficient funds to acquire a substantially greater number of assets. Portfolio restructuring has triggered further sales by institutional owners and this has put investment-grade assets within the reach of many private investors for the first time.
“During the first half of 2024, the challenges of refinancing should continue to prompt an increase in asset sales at our auctions while the latter part of the year should see a cut in interest rates and bring greater liquidity into the market.”
Notable lots at the December auction included the sale of a long-leasehold supermarket investment on the New Kings Road in London which sold after strong bidding for £1.51m at a yield of 7.72%. A prominent public house on George Lane in South Woodford sold for £1.39m, while another public house investment in Leeds, operating as the Bowers Tap, sold for £1.28m.
Trade counter investments have been popular throughout 2023 and this auction saw a Travis Perkins in Sleaford, Lincolnshire let until 2031 selling for £1.1m at a yield of 5.95%.
The first Acuitus auction of 2024 will take place on February 15th and will be broadcast via livestream on the Acuitus website with bidding online, by telephone and by proxy.
