Category: Auction
Land and Property Professionals
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We sell, rent, manage, survey, plan and advise...what can we do for you?
Market uncertainty and buyer confidence
The economic climate is always changing. While some believe it follows an eight-year cycle, others argue that the past ten years have been different. During this time, the economy has been shaken by a series of major world events, most recently the war in the Middle East. Whenever we see significant fluctuations, it affects people’s confidence, which in a downturn can have a seismic impact on property sales, particularly for an individual property where there are few comparable sales to offer reassurance.
Why auction can be the right route
This is where a sale by auction can be the most suitable route to market, especially with a traditional in-room auction. A fixed timeline brings buyers together, and the ability to see others attaching value to the same property is hugely reassuring. Even if the winning bidder ends up being driven beyond the maximum they were hoping to pay, there is the reassurance that they only paid a marginal amount more than the underbidder, their closest rival who too was willing to exchange contracts there and then.
The problem with overpricing and prolonged marketing
This scenario often applies to individual properties that have been marketed by agents for a lengthy period without success. The difficulty for agents at the start is in setting an asking price where there are no comparable sales, and, fearful of asking too little, most ask too much. Buyers then don’t engage, and the longer the property remains unsold, the more buyers question what may be wrong, and satisfy themselves they were right not to look at something nobody else wants to buy. Matters are worsened where a sale is agreed and later fails. All sorts of assumptions may then be made, and although the reason may have been quite innocent, the most dire theories may be applied.
Case study: Popes Farm, Sandy
Such was the case with Popes Farm, Sandy, offered in our auction on 22nd April. This was a four-bedroom Victorian farmhouse in need of improvement, together with a collection of buildings that comprised a garage, two barns, and a kennel building, with staff rooms and 17 stalls, plus an approved planning consent for residential redevelopment, all in a plot of two and a half acres, set at the end of a no-through road and fronting onto the A1.
Our first inspection was in September 2024, following six months of marketing by a Bedford corporate estate agent who typically deals with selling modest flats and houses within the town and who had recommended asking £1,300,000. How they had arrived at such a figure was a mystery – probably a combination of over exuberance and inexperience. We valued the property at just over half that sum, which resulted in a short conversation and a swift exit, accompanied by the parting remark that our door is always open. As is often the case, there is always another estate agent knocking on the door claiming they can achieve a better result, usually too afraid to suggest any meaningful reduction. So, the agent was replaced, the price was lowered, and lowered again, and a ‘buyer’ was eventually found and the sale ultimately fell through. All the time, the costs continued to rise with the property standing empty, and prospective buyers were holding off.
At the end of March, we spoke again with the seller, and this time our advice was heeded. We were instructed to offer the property with a guide price of £500,000. The guide price achieved its aim by attracting interest from multiple buyers, leading to strong competition, with three people bidding against each other. This resulted in a final sale price of £705,000, with contracts exchanged in just four weeks!
Case study: Grange Farm, Cople
Our second example is Grange Farm, Cople, a detached period farmhouse with a collection of barns totalling some 12,000 sq. ft., with past planning consent for development, set in just over three acres. It too had significant issues; most of the land was flood plain, a 9,000 sq. ft. barn was clad in asbestos, the traditional barns were dilapidated, and the farmhouse a wreck. It too had been on the market for over a year and had seen two aborted sales, the most recent involving a buyer who negotiated the price down to £650,000 before ultimately pulling out.
Our advice here was to guide at £550,000, which sparked tremendous interest. Each of our open-house viewing sessions were buzzing, with buyers seeing first hand the level of interest and the number of other attendees. With the auction just a week after the last viewing, the bidding was frantic and the eventual sale price was £780,000, being £130,000 more than the previous buyer was paying!
Honest advice and clear guidance
For anyone unsure whether a sale by auction will be suitable, we are always happy to appraise and give advice. We do not charge for appraisals, and if we don’t think auction is the best route to market, we will say so.
To discuss further, please contact me.
Here at Robinson & Hall Auctions, we’re thrilled with how 2025 played out. We achieved an average success rate of 85%, significantly ahead of the industry average of 67.6%, making us one of the most consistently reliable auctioneers in the country in terms of sale rates against lots offered.
Over the year, we offered 194 lots. We successfully sold 165, giving our future clients strong reassurance in the certainty of sale when choosing to instruct us. Speed of sale is also a key benefit of the auction route – in 2025, the average time from instruction to exchange with us was just 45 days, compared to over 200 days on the open market through a traditional estate agent.
We also experienced year-on-year growth, offering 44 more lots and achieving 35 more sales than we did in 2024 – a clear sign that demand for the speed and certainty of auctions continues to rise.
Property Market Outlook – The Year Ahead
The overall property market saw a subdued end to 2025 in which Nationwide noted that UK house prices fell by 0.4% month-on-month from April to December. As we progress into January, the property market appears to be transitioning into a period of cautious optimism. Visits to Rightmove nearly doubled (a 93% increase) between the quietest day of the year, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, as house hunters swapped board games and Christmas treats for property searches online. Indeed, Rightmove recorded its busiest ever Boxing Day for website visits in 2025, signalling a bigger-than-usual housing market bounce, with London and south-east movers most active.
Experts predict modest growth for 2026, with estimates ranging from 1.5% to 4%. Halifax reports that while prices hit a six-month low in December 2025, falling interest rates and easing inflation are expected to increase buyer purchasing power this year.
The Bank of England base rate was cut to 3.75% in late 2025 and markets anticipate further cuts in 2026, potentially reaching 3.25% by mid-year. As a result, major lenders like HSBC and Barclays have begun the year by cutting mortgage rates to compete for buyers. Average 2-year fixed rates have dropped to approximately 4.31%, down from nearly 6% in early 2024.
Regulatory and Legislative News
Renters’ Rights Act
Implementation remains a major focus for 2026, although some industry voices are calling for a delay to give the sector more time to adjust. Please read our recent article about the changes here.
Mansion Tax
A new surcharge now applies to properties in England valued over £2 million. Charges start at £2,500 and rise to £7,500 for properties over £5 million.
Leasehold Reform
The long-promised Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill was delayed at the end of 2025, with a new push for publication expected in early 2026.
Regulation for Estate Agents
There are renewed calls, this time from the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, for estate agents to be regulated. Otherwise, they say homebuying reforms will fail. They argued in response to the Government’s recent consultations on the Home Buying and Selling Reform that estate agents must be subject to the same professional and ethical framework as conveyancers.
The regulator warns that uneven standards across the transaction process risk undermining efforts to fix a system in which around £400m is lost annually to failed deals, and roughly one in three private treaty transactions fall through.
It is no wonder then that selling at auction continues to grow as sellers look for speed and certainty of sale. Here at Robinson & Hall Auctions, we are delighted with our 2025 performance and look forward to offering a streamlined service to sellers and buyers alike this year. Our first auction is on 25th February at 12 noon at the Delta Marriott Hotel, Milton Keynes.
If you have property or land that you wish to sell quickly, please contact our team to obtain a free auction appraisal on 01234 362899 or email auctions@robinsonandhall.co.uk
We offered 52 lots in our October auction, the largest auction yet.
The lots on offer ranged from small plots of land to large family homes. We are delighted to announce that we sold 83% and raised over £6.4 million for clients
We also had a film crew filming for a new Channel 4 property programme, I Bought It At Auction, due to launch next spring.
2025 is proving to be a record-breaking year for our auction department. With one auction left, we have offered 166 lots; 10% more than the whole of 2024, and sold 140 lots; 10 more than the whole of 2024.
The full list of results of our October auction are here:
Charles Lovell, Head of Auction, comments:
“We are thrilled with the auction results and our record-breaking October auction in terms of lots offered and our record-breaking year in general! If you would like to sell your property quickly before the year ends then please get in touch to book an auction appraisal. There is only two weeks until the December auction deadline.”
Our next auction is on 10th December. If you would like to find out whether your land or property is suitable, and to book a no-obligation auction appraisal, then please contact Charles.
Inheritance tax (IHT) in the UK has just hit a new milestone, but not in a good way. HMRC collected £6.7 billion in IHT during the 2022–23 tax year (the latest published figures), up 12% from the previous year. That’s £710 million more taken from estates, marking a record high in IHT receipts.
Why the jump? Property values are up, but tax thresholds haven’t moved. The nil-rate band, the portion of an estate exempt from tax, has been frozen at £325,000 since 2009, and it’s not set to increase until at least April 2030. In the meantime, inflation and rising house prices are quietly dragging more families into the IHT net.
What’s this got to do with property auctions?… Everything.
If you own property, especially if it’s unencumbered or part of a portfolio, you are more likely than ever to be impacted by IHT. This results in a growing number of people rethinking how they manage their estates. For some, it means accelerating plans to gift assets. For others, it’s about turning bricks and mortar into cash more efficiently, before HMRC takes a bigger slice than expected.
That’s where property auctions come in. Auctions offer a fast, transparent, and often tax-savvy way to handle property sales, particularly in estate planning, probate, or inheritance management. Selling at auction can help executors and beneficiaries move quickly, realise true market value, and sometimes reduce future IHT exposure by shrinking the estate ahead of time.
The hidden numbers behind “Only 1 in 20”
Officially, only 4.62% of deaths in the UK triggered an IHT bill in 2022–23 (the latest published figures). That’s up from 4.39% the year before, a noticeable rise, but still a small-sounding percentage. However, many financial experts argue that this figure masks the actual impact on families.
As Nicholas Hyett from Wealth Club explains, the “1 in 20” stat is skewed because transfers between spouses are tax-free. So if one partner dies and leaves everything to their spouse, there’s no IHT due yet. Only when the second partner passes is the full estate assessed for tax. At that point, the 40% IHT rate kicks in on anything above the threshold (potentially £650,000 if both nil-rate bands are combined).
The bottom line? Far more families will ultimately be affected by IHT than headline numbers suggest.
Families are acting sooner
As the tax burden grows, more people are taking advice and action before it’s too late. That often includes:
An auction can offer a practical, time-sensitive solution in many of these scenarios, especially when multiple heirs are involved or where the estate needs to be liquidated quickly and cleanly
Auctions as an estate planning tool
More families are turning to property auctions, not just as a route to sell but as part of a broader estate strategy. Here’s why:
This is a powerful tool for executors. For homeowners concerned about leaving behind a tax burden, it’s a clean way to convert assets into liquid funds, potentially avoiding future tax complications for their heirs.
What’s next?
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts IHT revenues to hit £9.1 billion in 2025–26 if no changes are made. That’s nearly double what was collected just 5 years ago.
Meanwhile, murmurs of future reforms continue. One area likely to face scrutiny is the gifting regime. If the Treasury tightens the rules on tax-free gifts during someone’s lifetime, that could close off a major planning avenue. This is why many families are acting now, even though the rules are still unclear.
Inheritance tax isn’t just a problem for the ultra-wealthy anymore. Middle and upper-middle-income families with modest property holdings are caught in the crossfire.
If you’re sitting on property and haven’t considered how it affects your estate, now’s the time to look ahead. Auctioning might not just be about getting a fair market price – it could be about protecting what you’ve worked for.
Our next auction is on 22nd October. If you would like to find out whether your land or property is suitable, and to book a no-obligation auction appraisal, then please contact Charles.
Our 25th June auction saw a lot sell for over £1.6 million in the room, one of our highest results.
Once again we had a variety of lots on offer from residential properties which required work, apartments, building land, an office and block of apartments, a development site, agricultural land, a pub, a mixed use property and residential investments.
2025 is proving to be a record breaking year for our auction department. So far this year we have offered 100 lots in our 3 auctions, 30% more than this time last year and sold 83 lots, 24% more than last year.
The full list of results are here:
Our next auction is on 13th August. If you would like to find out whether your land or property is suitable, and to book a no-obligation auction appraisal then please contact Charles Lovell, Head of Auction on 01280 818903 or email charles.lovell@robinsonandhall.co.uk
Our April auction, which took place last week, was our largest yet with 39 lots on offer!
We once again had a variety of lots including houses which needed refurbishment, bungalows, apartments, family houses, building plots, agricultural land, a fishing lake, offices, and a shop.
In 2024, we offered 150 lots at our 6 auctions and sold 130, a success rate of 87%! This year, so far we have offered 67 lots in our 2 auctions and sold 79%, and we are confident this figure will rise in the coming days when unsold lots get snapped up.
The full list of results are here:
Our next auction is on 25th June. If you would like to find out whether your land or property is suitable, and to book a no-obligation auction appraisal then please contact Charles.
Property portal Zoopla reported in February that the housing market is off to its strongest start in three years, with 12% more new sales agreed in January 2025 than in January 2024. Further good news for sellers is that prices are also up, with the boost in sales supporting a modest 2% rise.
This sees the average house price now at £267,700, £5,200 more than in 2024, partly due to first-time buyers trying to get on the property ladder before the stamp duty hikes are implemented in April. However, moves to ‘simplify responsible lending’ being put forward as part of the Government’s ‘growth mission’ may see a further jump in prices. Bank of England figures showed 66,526 mortgage deals being given the green light in December, up from 66,061 the previous month.
Are you considering selling your land or property?
Robinson & Hall Auctions may be able to help you. With an auction every other month, you could sell your land or property within 8 weeks. Contact the team to discuss whether your land or property is suitable for auction and they will be able to carry out a no-obligation auction appraisal by visiting the lot and discussing the options with you.
Lots which have sold particularly well at our auctions are small parcels of land, rental properties, disused buildings, properties with a short lease, properties where value can be added, and farms or houses which require lots of work.
View the latest auction results here.
To book a no-obligation auction appraisal or to find out how the auction department can help you, please contact Charles.
2024 has been another great year for the Auction department at Robinson & Hall. Our aims for this year, in addition to continuing our growth trajectory, were to expand the team, develop new relationships with estate agents to introduce suitable property, and to try to make the process of both selling and buying at auction less intimidating and more accessible.
Our growth has continued, and, already with an auction to go, we have exceeded the number of lots offered in 2023 by 133 and the number sold by 115. The percentage of lots sold is 87%, with the expectation that after the December auction, we will have a 20% improvement over last year.
The lot which performed the best over the guide price in 2024, was a three-acre paddock at Felmersham, which sold for nearly six times the guide price.
The fastest selling lot in 2024 was a flat in Shortstown. Sold as a late lot for a desperate seller, it was sold for £71,000 more than his aborted sale and just 13 days after we were instructed to sell!
The team was expanded at the beginning of June with the appointment of Lee Jackson who joined us as an Auction Lister. As an ex-professional golfer and coach, Lee possesses a natural ability to connect with people, and he has started on the long journey of gaining a broad knowledge of property auctions extremely well. New relationships have been formed by David Howard, our Business Development Manager, that concluded with successful sales on introductions from agents in Towcester, Tring, High Wycombe and Wolverton.
To make the process of buying and selling through our auction more accessible, we took a critical look at our website. We decided to start from scratch to create a completely new site with useful guides and contacts for both buyers and sellers, and one that is just as easy to navigate on mobile devices as it is on a laptop or PC. This took much longer than we had originally anticipated as our ideas expanded, and we were undertaking this work in amongst our normal duties of appraising property, reporting to potential clients, building catalogues, hosting open-house viewings and holding our auction at the Delta Marriott Hotel in Milton Keynes every two months. We were finally ready to launch the new site at the start of November and we are delighted with the response from people using it.
If you would like to book a no obligation auction appraisal to find out if your land or property is suitable for auction, then please contact me.
Another successful auction was had in August at our venue, the Delta Marriott Hotel in Milton Keynes. We hold our bi-monthly auctions there and buyers can bid in-room, online, by proxy or by telephone.
The full list of results can be found below:
We sell a variety of lots at our auctions, but those which sell particularly well are:
Have you seen our auction in action? Watch one of our lots sell at our August auction for £92,000 over the guide price.
We are now taking lots for our next auction. To find out if your land or property is suitable or to book a free, no obligation auction appraisal, then please call 01234 362899 or email auctions@robinsonandhall.co.uk
David Jones, Auctioneer at Robinson & Hall Auctions, provides a summary of what to expect at the August auction.
David comments about the auction market: “Obviously, I am a passionate advocate for auction sales. The speed, competition and certainty of the process suits most properties and most sellers. The transparency and the lack of fuss gives confidence to buyers.
Nevertheless, there are times in the property cycle when auction sales really come into their own. This is just such a time.
The market remains keen, but it is also cautious. There are plenty with cash looking for investments, but we all know that those needing to borrow will be less competitive. Everybody still wants to press on with selling and buying, but nobody wants to make a wrong move. Business goes on, with care.
We saw this in action at our June auction sale where the crowd in the saleroom was the largest since lockdown, and bidding for sensibly priced lots was enthusiastic. All bar two lots were sold on the day of the sale, but both those lots were sold a few days later to give an overall record of 100%. Both sellers and buyers walked away happy with their trades.
Our August sale looks to be equally popular, with more lots entered than for some time. We offer the usual mix of development projects, investment opportunities and land.”
We shall be pleased to see you in the saleroom on 3rd August. The auction takes place at 2.30 pm at the Delta Marriott Hotel, Milton Keynes. The catalogue can be downloaded here. Please join us on the livestream link if you are unable to attend in person, but do not forget to register with us beforehand if you intend to bid via livestream. Full details are available on our website.
We are now taking lots for our next auction. To find out if your land or property is suitable or to book a free, no obligation auction appraisal, then please call 01234 362899 or email auctions@robinsonandhall.co.uk
