Agency's new remote auction technique heralded as major success

Savills has held its fourth remote auction, raising some £32m with an 82 per cent success rate - making it the most successful July auction for the company since 2017. 

Held at the tail end of last month, the auction involved a new virtual format allowing bidders to participate remotely while following the action in real time on a live stream.

The auctioneer took bids at a virtual rostrum as they would in the auction room, a format which Savills says it had been developing pre-lockdown. 

Since March, Savills has held four remote auctions, all in accordance with government guidelines, raising a total of almost £91m overall. 

The March event took place in an auctioneer’s home but once lockdown eased events from June onwards took place from a Savills office with multiple auctioneers. In each case, the events replicated the bidding process of the live auction room.

“Interestingly, now we have held four live streamed auctions we can see that our average sold price is over £100,000 higher than at our ballroom auctions … Success rates are consistent across all price ranges” explains Jeremy Lamb, a director in Savills Auctions team.

“While the majority of bidders bought through our new online platform, we still had almost 200 telephone bidders, a function that can only be enabled by the live stream auction style. Our new innovative sale style provides both bidders and sellers with different options in how to engage with the technology, while still offering them the personal human service we as a team pride ourselves on.”