London property auctions

Commercial-property auctions aimed at the general public are held several times a month in London, and draw at least twice the number of people they did a decade ago when prices were low.

Alastair Hughes, European chief executive at the property and investment firm Jones Lang Lasalle, said: “When I graduated in the early 1990s, I used to be sent down to the auction room to sit there and make it seem busier.”

Today’s would-be buyers are not City types. George Walker, partner at Allsop, said: “I’d say 30% would be full-time property people, the rest small-business men, shopkeepers, pharmacists, lawyers and hoteliers. Three-quarters of them are gearing up with debt in the hope of making capital gains.”

In 1996 the total proceeds from Allsop’s commercial auctions during the year were £227m. By 2001 this had risen to £597m, and in 2005 it hit £1 billion.

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