BidX1 property auctions: new eBay-style site for UK home buyers and sellers takes bids from smartphones

The new digital online auction site is already big business, making it easy to bid and buy via smartphone.
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Lee Mallett7 August 2019

Homeowners wary of the auction room when it comes to buying or selling might prefer a new digital online auction called BidX1.

It is a bit like online goods market eBay, but for property.

Difficulties of raising finance, bargains that turn into bottomless pits, fears about losing deposits, overbidding, and auctioneers plucking “bids off the wall” still put many off the traditional “ballroom” auction.

But BidX1, up and running in the UK for 18 months, could be modifying that image.

Most significant is the holding of a £4,500 “buyers fee” at registration to enable you to bid.

How it works

If you win with the highest bid, you must pay a 10 per cent deposit at once and complete the purchase in 20 business days, possibly extended if over Christmas.

Each time a highest bid is made, the auction automatically extends for a further minute and only closes when there are no further bids.

“We’re running at an 80 per cent success rate this year, while the industry average is around 70 per cent,” says head of residential auctions Richard Watson, previously a partner at leading auction house Allsop.

“Part of that is down to BidX1 having greater visibility and transparency about exactly who is bidding.”

BidX1’s registration system for buyers and sellers complies with UK money laundering regulations and enables both sides to see on-screen who is bidding, how much, and when.

BidX1’s systems can also see where the bid is from geographically, and on what sort of device it was made.

Customers can view, bid, buy and sell from home on a mobile phone. And it seems the detailed knowledge and visibility of who is bidding what, is of interest to both residential and commercial buyers and sellers because records can be checked.

“Our data shows 40 per cent of bidders use their mobile to bid on auction day,” says Watson.

For sellers, BidX1’s fees are one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half per cent of the sale price, depending on the size and complexity of what’s offered.

BidX1 raised £75 million in the UK last year for sellers of both residential and commercial property. It has been a fully online digital auction in Ireland since 2017 and has offices in South Africa, Spain and Cyprus, with others in Europe planned.

Its platform went online in January last year in the UK after the company, founded by chief executive Stephen McCarthy in Ireland in 2011, bought auctioneer Andrews & Robertson.

Sales totalled £300 million across all those offices last year and BidX1 claims a database of 100,000 registered users and 1.7 million hits on its website, from 185 countries.

The digital catalogue for its auction last month was viewed from 74 countries, an indication of global investor interest in UK property.

Of those hits, 58,000 were from the UK, 4,700 from Ireland and 2,360 from the US, with views in the hundreds from South Africa, Spain, India, Israel, Australia and the Emirates.

“We are looking at softer contracts so people have longer to complete, up to 90 days, and finance is made available first, to ensure those caught up in a chain can proceed,” says Watson. “Purchases might become conditional on the outcome of a survey, for example.”

He hopes to have examples of new auction contracts and pre-agreed finance deals for owner-occupier purchasers available by autumn.

“This will force lenders and purchasers to do the work they need to do in advance, which may give buyers greater confidence. We want to get to the position where anyone looking to buy a home would consider BidX1.”