EIG has published its latest Property Auction Insights, and the South West figures make encouraging reading. Residential auction sales across the region rose 11% in the first half of the year, from 1,108 lots to 1,235, against national growth of 8.4%. Of the thirteen regions, only London, Yorkshire and the North West recorded stronger increases.
Average sale prices in the region came in 7% lower at £150,000, though we would be wary of reading too much into that on its own. The composition of auction stock shifts considerably from one catalogue to the next, and a change in the type, condition and location of lots coming forward will move an average as readily as any movement in underlying values. The more useful measure is how much property is actually finding a buyer, and on that basis volumes rose across twelve of the thirteen regions.
One of the clearer trends in the report is the growth in flat sales. Flats now account for 27.2% of residential auction sales nationally, having sat at around a fifth for most of the preceding five years, and the South West was among eleven regions where numbers increased. Lease length, service charges, building safety requirements and the effect all three can have on mortgageability continue to narrow the field of conventional buyers for this type of stock. Auction puts it in front of investors, developers and cash purchasers who are prepared to assess those factors on their merits and bid accordingly.
The report also considers the early effect of the Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force on 1 May. Nationally, tenanted lots made up 10.2% of first-half sales, broadly in line with the 9.9% recorded in 2025 and well below the 13.3% seen during the 2024 spike in landlord disposals. Our own experience across the South West has been rather more pronounced. We saw a steady flow of buy-to-let landlords leaving the sector in the months leading up to 1 May, and that flow has not eased since. The legislation itself is only part of it. New registration requirements, tighter compliance obligations and the cumulative cost of meeting them, set against the tax position landlords have been working under for some years now, are prompting a good many to question whether the returns still justify staying in. For those who decide they have had enough, auction offers a defined timescale and a sale that is unconditional once the hammer falls, whether the property is sold with a tenant in situ or with vacant possession.
Charles Darrow works in partnership with BTG Eddisons, the UK’s second largest property auction house. We handle the appraisal, the local knowledge and the marketing here in the South West of England, and the lot then goes forward into a national catalogue with a national buyer audience behind it.
If you are weighing up a sale and would like a considered view on whether auction is the right route for the property, we would be glad to hear from you.