Covid Transforms Market as Auction House Results Hit All-Time Record

The UK’s largest property auctioneer says that there is now clear evidence of the impact that the global Coronavirus pandemic has had on the auction market, as the group sees an all-time record for the annual amount of money it has raised, as well as a dramatic shift in its website demographic.

Auction House’s own figures indicate that compared to the whole of pre-Covid 2019, money raised in 2021 jumped by over a third (37.9%) from £439,705,781 to over £600 million (£606,142,854) – an increase of £166.4m.

Meanwhile, analysis shows that not only does the Auction House website have more users (from 1.6m in 2019 to 2.4m now), a greater proportion of younger people are accessing the group’s services online. Whilst use by the 55-64 year old age group has dropped by 19%, there has been a 42% increase in the number of 25-34 year olds and an incredible 441% increase in the amount of 18-24 year olds getting involved.

Commenting on the figures, Auction House Managing Director Jeremy Prior said: “Without doubt, the pandemic has created a seismic shift in how the market operates, with impacts which will probably last forever. Lockdowns and social distancing mean that we have had to focus on a mixture of livestream and online auctions, which itself has turbo-boosted involvement by a younger demographic.

In December alone, Auction House offered 489 lots and sold 418 of them – a spectacular success rate of 85.5%, raising £69,145,075 in the process.