The UK property auction market reached its highest point in a decade in 2022, approaching £0.5 billion in revenue, as revealed by recent research conducted by Moverly.

Moverly conducted an analysis of the annual revenue of the property auction house sector since 2013 and found that in 2022, the sector generated a total revenue of £409.3 million.

This marked the largest profit in the past ten years, representing a growth of nearly 30% since 2013 when revenue amounted to £316.4 million.

Despite this decade-long growth, the data from the past years shows that the property auction sector faced challenges in gaining traction. It experienced a yearly decrease in size between 2017 and 2021, reaching a low of £251.3 million in revenue.

The pandemic initially exacerbated the market decline, with heightened buyer demand leading to fewer sellers turning to auction houses. The open market appeared more reliable and profitable for sellers.

As a result, the sector saw two consecutive years of double-digit decline in 2020 and 2021.

However, the increased demand also caused a backlog in the housing market, particularly during the conveyancing process, where timelines extended beyond six months.

Remarkably, the property auction sector transitioned from years of decline to record annual growth of 62.9% between 2021 and 2022.

Subsequently, the economic challenges of 2023 have resulted in a cooling housing market.

As a consequence, Moverly forecasts that by the end of this year, the auction market revenue will record a marginal annual decline of 5.3%.

Nevertheless, this would still result in annual revenue of £387.7 million, which remains the second-highest in the last decade.

Ed Molyneux, co-founder of Moverly, expressed, “A severe bottleneck in the buying process, caused by surging buyer demand during the pandemic, forced many sellers to the auction house in 2022."

He pointed out that this was not the ideal path to selling, often leading to lower prices compared to the open market, and adding uncertainty regarding the final price.

The bottleneck, he observed, was largely a result of delays in the conveyancing process, which struggled to handle the surge in demand.

He further noted, “It’s clear that Home Information Packs (HIPs) would have been a massive help in reducing this backlog."

According to him, providing sellers with upfront property information could eliminate the need for them to seek out this information themselves, resulting in shorter waiting times for surveyors and a smoother conveyancing process, preventing many sellers from resorting to auction sales.