Saturday 9 July 2011

Man bids against himself at Allsop Irish auction.

Those folk at Allsop, the UK auctioneers, must be delighted with themselves having tapped into the Irish “fire sale” market.  It has been said before on the blog, but get enough cash-rich Paddies still infected with the lethal property-buying bug of a few years back, and it’s “going, going, gone!!! (to the half-wit at the front). Congratulations, sir!”

Witness the scene at the July 7th auction, again held at Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel. One bidder was so eager to bag a pub with a reserve price of €50,000 that he got a little bit carried away by it all. After some lively interest in the hall, with the price rising apace, he made a bid of €260,000. He then went one better and upped it by another €10,000.

It seems that this provoked some hilarity in the room, and the bidder got a bit thick with the auctioneer when he – in fairness – told the punter he was bidding against himself. “I want a bit of respect from you!” he is reported to have told the gobsmacked gavel-bearer. Sorry, respect is something you have to earn.  It went for €270,000.

Where else would you get it, honestly? It seems that Allsop personnel have reported higher sale rates in its two Irish events – higher than at auctions held in England. They must think they’ve really landed on their feet coming over here.

Witness a property featured on Gombeen Nation’s last Allsop report. Although it had a reserve price of €360,000 it actually went for €710,000. At the time of the auction there was another house on the same road with a private treaty asking price of €445,000 on My Home (see below). Go figure.



You also have to wonder – given the high proportion of cash sales at these auctions – what kind of a rotten little country Ireland is?

Lowly paid workers are being hit with wage cuts after wealthy judges found their pay negotiating mechanisms to be “unconstitutional” (while using the Constitution to protect their own salaries) yet you have people with – evidently – about two brain cells in their heads bandying large wads of cash about at events such as this. 

Maybe it is time for Revenue to finally get out of its PAYE comfort zone?

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8 comments:

Dakota said...

That was a joke right? That individual was bidding against himself? I'm sure ethics could be taken into consideration there if he wanted to wriggle out of it?
Anyway it's a good example of where we are and how we got there. And where we are is nowhere land. Bottom line still remains if a housing bubble was created and it bursts there can be no recovery in the wider economy, without, at the very least, a complete stabilisation of the housing market and optimism for the future. There is no precedent in history to the contrary. The elite unleashed insanity and Paddy and Mary lapped it up. Classic atavisim.

The Gombeen Man said...

It sounds like something the unlamented bigot "comic" Bernard Manning might have made up, D. But no, that little nugget of info is from an Irish Times report on the event. Think our friends on the Property Pin have covered it also.

What can I say? Not much promise for the future, eh?

Anonymous said...

GM you are making this stuff up stop it i tell you stop it before i BH

The Gombeen Man said...

I just wish it wasn't true, BH, I really do... The place just seems to be getting worse.

anna said...

hear, hear!! Revenue doesn't have the staff to get after blatant tax cheats- and why was it alwasy so understaffed in this regard?? because that's what our 1% elite class Wanted- and gombeen politicians ( who were also tax cheats and cooks) let it contunue that way

The Gombeen Man said...

Yes Anna... I remember there was some disparity between bank figures on the number of cash-rich in Ireland and the actual return Revenue accounted for. Perhaps its just to easy for them to watch the PAYE money flow in while neglecting other sectors?

Anonymous said...

You need to compare like for like. No. 33 Iona road is dived into TWO apartments therefore work will be required to be carried out to make it into a single private residance again. This is why it said 6 bed!!!! Thats from two minutes RESEARCH.
When you say Allsop have reported higher sales rates. What do you mean? have they sold the greatest number of houses relative to that available on the day? Does the higher sales rate refer to % achieved above reserve?????? I'm not arguing with any of your statements just would love to know the basis of the opinion formed????

The Gombeen Man said...

Yes, I am aware that the properties are not identical. In fairness I included screengrabs of both from the original My Home adverts, and never claimed they were. They are both, however, semi-ds on Iona Road within a few doors of each other. And yes, I read the descriptions of both.

Sure, if someone was buying No33 as a live-in, rather then investment property, I am sure they would have to pay the builder to convert it back. I don't, however, imagine that the bill would come to €265,000.

My beef here is with the bidders at the Irish auctions, not Allsops. The man bidding against himself being a good example.

The part about Allsops reporting higher sales at their Irish auctions came from its own personel as reported in the press. They said that sale rates, ie the number of properties shifted at auction, were higher at the Irish events than in their British equivalents.

"Allsop sold 78 of the 83 lots - a 94% sales rate, which was higher than the UK where Allsop sell an average of 87%."

(RTE News, July 7th) http://www.rte.ie/news/money/mortgages/green-shoots-in-house-price-say-uk-auctioneers.html