Carl Finch, branch manager at Graham Penny Auctions on Granby Street, thinks the answer is marketing:
“The best way to find a buyer and achieve the best price for a property is to market it to the widest possible audience.
All good estate agents will create sales details to advertise your property in the estate agency window and put a sale board outside your house but what if no one walks past and sees it? That’s why properties should also be advertised in the local newspaper property guides, on national property websites such as RightMove and marketed to an existing list of registered buyers.
The marketing doesn’t even have to stop there, as an auction house we will also print a quality catalogue detailing all the properties on offer in our next auction. That will be mailed to our database of thousands of potential buyers across the East Midlands and the rest of the UK, will be available in our offices and on our website. Plus, we post the legal documentation for all our properties, including Land Registry plans, special conditions and tenancy agreements, on our website to download for free.
It is this intensive marketing for at least four weeks leading up to our auctions that has led to us sell more than £3.1m worth of property in the first quarter of 2014.”
There are many advantages to selling at auction; it’s quick – the whole process takes around six weeks, there’s no chain and when the hammer falls your property is sold. Selling at auction also widens the potential market, not only will there be buyers who want to make it their home, there will also be investors, developers and property dealers interested in buying. In many cases an auction could prove to be the best method for selling your property and not just a last resort.
Graham Penny Auctions is currently inviting entries for its next auction on Wednesday 7th May at the King Power Stadium. With 21 auctions per year at the iPro Stadium in Derby, Nottingham Racecourse and the King Power Stadium in Leicester Graham Penny Auctions dominates the region’s house and property auction market in terms of lots offered, lots sold and revenue raised and continues to stay well ahead of its rivals across the East Midlands.
Carl added: “The popularity of TV programmes like Homes under the Hammer is increasing awareness of auctions as an effective way to sell a property and when I am out on valuations I get a lot of people telling me how impressed they are with the level of marketing we provide as standard to our vendor clients. Entries are now open for our next Leicester auction and I encourage anyone thinking of selling to get in touch with us now for a free appraisal.”
