March North East Auction Update

With the current concerns with regards to Covid-19, we have decided to make adjustments to our upcoming North East auction on Wednesday 25th March.  

Over the last few years, we have seen a steady increase in the number of people bidding remotely, either by telephone, online bid or by proxy. In the last six months, 71% of properties sold to bidders who were not physically in the room to bid.  We have also seen an increase of 57% of sales in online auctions nationally. 

With this in mind, we believe that moving to an online auction will not cause significant disruption on the ability of buyers to bid, or prevent us gaining the best price and a secure sale for our sellers.  

Bidders must pre-register, download and read through the legal pack and then choose how they would like to bid, either online via the Pattinson website or submit a pre-auction bid authorising the auctioneer to bid on their behalf up to a pre-agreed limit.  We appreciate that some people may not be able to bid online and we will continue to allow bids via telephone with a member of the Pattinson auction teams provided the telephone bidding form has been completed. 

Often we have properties which are sold before the night of the auction, if you are interested in a particular property, we urge you to register your interest with the auction team early. This will ensure that you are notified if the auction is going to be ending early and the property has sold prior, so you do not miss out.

The health and well being of staff and clients is always a foremost concern, and we believe that an online auction will help assist with 'social distancing' and allow clients to bid from the comfort of their own homes.  

With regards to viewings, we have put the following steps in place:

- We would ask that where viewings take place, you do not shake hands.  
- We will not allow multiple people to be in a property at the same time.
- We are also asking customers to wash their hands before and after attending a viewing and carry hand sanitiser in their car if possible.
- We ask that you do not touch surfaces.  
- All members of Pattinson staff are adhering to the Government guidelines, anyone with a high temperature and/or a persistent cough will be self-isolating for fourteen days. (This may mean that we have to reschedule your appointment, but we will try as best we can to minimise any disruption).
- We would ask that no person who has these symptoms attends a viewing. If you contact us on 0191 737 1152 we will be happy to reschedule the appointment for when you are feeling better.   

We have continued to innovate and adapt our auction process and with a high proportion of properties already selling online and via telephone bid we are already highly experienced at selling properties in this way. 

You can download our North East catalogue here:

https://pattinson.blob.core.windows.net/paccess/auctioncatalogues/409.pdf