According to the EI Group, auction revenues for November were up, despite a slight drop in sales, although they caution investors not to be concerned about a decline, since no London commercial auction houses held an auction in November, which will have influenced these figures.
At Together, our auction finance division has performed well in 2016, with our team attending over 300 auctions, and annual lending to the end of June standing at £79 million, a 31 per cent increase on the previous year.
It’s been a great year across the wider group too; we achieved record annual lending of over £1 billion for the first time in our 42-year history, and have received recognition across all our products, being named Best for Auction Financing and Bridging Lender of the Year, as well as being listed as one of the UK’s leading private companies in the Sunday Times Top Track 250.
The year has had its challenges of course. Property investors were hit by the stamp duty hike in April and then the surprise of Brexit in June, with the wave of uncertainty that followed. However, the market has proved resilient, and certainly from our point of view as a lender, we haven’t seen any slow-down in property professionals approaching us for finance.
There are more changes ahead of course, with the cuts to mortgage tax relief and the ban on lettings fees, plus we’re still to get underway with our departure from the EU and to see the impact that may have on both the financial and property sectors. However, if this year is anything to go by, we can expect property investors to adapt their models as needed and take the changes in their stride.
For us at Together, we have ambitious plans for growth, with recent new recruits to both our auction team and our commercial sales team to help us expand our reach across the UK, so we’ll be looking forward to working with more landlords, investors and businesses in the year ahead.
We wish you the very best for 2017 and a very happy holiday season.
