Rare auction sale of open market house
A RARE open market property auction yesterday saw a St Saviour’s house sell for £1.52m.
About 40 people gathered in the garden of Le Coin on Rue de la Bataille for the sale.
There had been roughly 70 expressions of interest.
Because of the number of enquiries and the owner’s time sensitivity to complete a sale, Cooper Brouard invited interested parties to the site at noon where the company’s licensed auctioneer, Trevor Cooper, hosted the bidding in the sunshine.
The auction was set for earlier this year but delayed due to lockdown.
The 400sq. m. detached family house overlooks the west coast sea views across to Fort Richmond.
Bids started at £1m. and saw lots of back and forth between a handful of hopeful buyers.
The nature of the sale meant anyone prepared to buy had to put down 10% of the cost immediately after the auction.
Mr Cooper said that because timing was important to the owners and the location was impressive, an auction was the best way to sell the house.
‘It is a fantastic thrill to auction a house, even the auctioneer doesn’t know who is going to turn up or what the bids will be,’ he said.
‘In Guernsey, properties need some kind of wow factor to be sold at auction, but we knew that because of the views and size of the property and adjoining land it was the right property to auction.’
Property auctions are fairly rare, especially open market ones. It had been some 18 years since Cooper Brouard auctioned an open market house.
With Guernsey having good publicity over the last 12 months, being relatively free of Covid restrictions, there were several advocates representing off-island buyers.
