Property Auctions in 2026 – What to Expect…
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Produced by Ruban Selvanayagam
Transcript
Hi, I’m Ruban Selvanayagam from Property Solvers Auctions.
In this video, I want to look at where property auctions are heading in 2026 – and, more importantly, what the data is already telling us.
While much of the wider housing-market conversation is still focused on forecasts, sentiment, and headlines, the auction market has been processing change in real time.
As conditions tightened across the property market in recent years, auctions were one of the first places where pricing had to adjust – reflecting early shifts in buyer and seller behaviour.
That’s why property auctions are often described as the “barometer” of the housing market.
Not because they predict what’s coming next, but because they tend to adjust earlier than most other routes to sale – often well before those changes show up in open market and Land Registry sold prices or the official indices.
So if you want to understand what’s already changed – and what that means for sellers and buyers heading into 2026 – auctions are one of the most useful places to look.
Let’s dive in…
So unlike private-treaty sales, auctions tend to attract a very different mix of sellers – and that’s what makes the pricing and end results so informative.
Many who choose auctions are simply looking for a quicker, more efficient route to sale. That typically includes:
- Private clients who value certainty and speed
- Lenders and mortgagees in possession
- Receivers and insolvency practitioners
- Asset managers and institutions
- Executors dealing with probate estates
- Landlords exiting or restructuring portfolios amongst others
On the other side of the transaction, auction bidders are usually cash buyers, investors, developers, bargain hunters and value-driven purchasers.
When those two groups meet, prices are discovered quickly.
There’s no prolonged marketing period, no incremental price reductions, or renegotiations after the hammer falls and no scope for optimistic asking prices to drift for months.
That’s why Auction Outcomes Tend to Reflect Real Market Value Under Current Conditions, rather than aspiration.
Before we discuss what to expect in 2026, let’s start with what the data our team has tracked from 2024 and 2025 actually reveals.
Across the UK’s 50 leading auctioneers, including ourselves, 27,836 lots were sold in 2024.
In 2025, that figure eased back to 25,311 lots sold.
So volumes did come down – but not dramatically.
In 2024, sold auction properties raised approximately £5.7 billion.
In 2025, that figure was £5.46 billion.
So despite fewer lots selling, the total value raised only dipped modestly. That tells us this wasn’t a market collapsing despite what’s been a challenging market for us all involved in property – but it was a market normalising after what property commentators have labelled the post-pandemic surge.
The same pattern shows up in clearance rates.
In 2024, the average percentage of lots sold was around 71%, with average monthly lows of 28% and highs of 97%.
In 2025, the average clearance rate was also around 71%, but with a higher floor – average lows of 44% – and highs reaching 98%.
And whilst the auction market has definitely seen better days, that stability matters. If auctions were signalling distress, I and I think many property market commentators would argue you’d expect clearance rates to fall away sharply.
Instead, they show a market that spent 2025 adjusting prices, not freezing activity.
If you widen the lens beyond the largest auctioneers, Essential Information Group, which also provides the underlying technology used by us here at Property Solvers Auctions – estimates that around 30,000 lots were sold across the UK in 2025.
That figure includes a wider universe of auctioneers – including smaller and regional operators – so it isn’t directly comparable with the top-50 data.
But directionally, it supports the same conclusion: Auction Activity Remained Reasonably Robust, even though conditions have tightened.
And that’s the right place to start when thinking about 2026.
Because when transactions continue in a tightening environment, it usually means the market has already adjusted its behaviour. Expectations have shifted. Pricing assumptions have changed. And decisions are being made on the basis of realism rather than optimism.
That’s very different from a market that’s still resisting reality.
So as 2026 progresses, we believe that auctions aren’t just starting to adjust – they’re operating in a market that has already reset and is now differentiating between what works and what doesn’t.
Some assets will continue to trade well. Others will struggle unless pricing reflects the new environment. And outcomes will increasingly depend on who is selling, why they’re selling, and how the property is positioned.
That becomes particularly clear once you look more closely at the motivations behind the property owners looking to dispose at auction.
One of the biggest misconceptions at the moment is that auction supply is being driven primarily by distress – particularly in buy-to-let.
The data doesn’t support that.
UK Finance’s latest published data shows that in the third quarter of 2025 there were around 10,420 buy-to-let mortgages in arrears of 2.5% or more of the outstanding balance, which equates to roughly 0.5% of all buy-to-let lending – a modest share overall.
More importantly, completed buy-to-let repossessions remain low by long-term standards, with around 900 cases in Q3 2025, compared with tens of thousands per year during the Global Financial Crisis.
So what we’re seeing is pressure – not panic.
That distinction matters, because it changes the nature of supply coming to auction.
Much of the selling activity over the last couple of years has been Discretionary Rather Than Forced.
Landlords are making rational portfolio decisions – exiting lower-yielding units and reducing exposure where refinancing costs outweigh the benefits, there’s overburdensome management effort, or when ongoing compliance and regulatory obligations mean that holding on to these properties no longer stacks up for them.
For instance, the minimum EPC requirements, uncertainty around implementation timelines, and the broader direction of travel on energy efficiency have already changed the risk profile of older and less efficient rental stock.
At the same time, the Renters’ Rights Act introduces further structural change – removing Section 21, tightening possession routes, and placing greater emphasis on long-term compliance and professional management.
For many landlords, particularly smaller or accidental ones, this isn’t about crisis – it’s about reassessment. And when that happens, auctions are often the most efficient route to market.
But landlords are only one part of the picture.
Another consistent source of auction stock comes from private sellers who prioritise certainty and speed, and these make up a significant proportion of the clients we assist at here Property Solvers Auctions.
These are often not majorly distressed sellers. They’re people for whom timing matters more than holding out for an uncertain private-treaty sale – whether that’s due to relocation, inheritance, divorce, broader financial planning considerations or owning a property they don’t have the time, energy or inclination to refurbish themselves.
In many cases, we’ll first discuss the option of a fast cash offer.
However, sellers we talk to often find that those offers are too heavily discounted and rather than accept a price that feels artificially low, auctioning becomes a better choice.
That’s because a competitive bidding environment allows the market to determine value – while still offering a defined timetable, transparency, and certainty of outcome despite the sale not being discreet.
For that type of seller, auctions aren’t a last resort – they’re a deliberate choice.
Similarly, executors dealing with probate estates often favour auctions because they offer transparency, a defined timetable, and a clear audit trail – particularly where multiple beneficiaries are involved.
Then there are lenders, mortgagees in possession, receivers and insolvency practitioners.
For these sellers, the priority is risk management, certainty of outcome, speed of execution and a process that stands up to scrutiny.
Add to that asset managers and institutional sellers, who may be rotating portfolios, exiting non-core assets, or responding to internal capital requirements – and you start to see why auction supply remains resilient even when the wider market slows.
Then, of course, there are commercial, mixed-use, and land sellers, where auctions have long been a preferred route to market, offering transparency, defined timescales, and access to buyers familiar with more complex or non-standard assets.
None of this points to a distressed market. It points to a market where efficiency, certainty, and realism are increasingly valued.
Now let’s turn to buyers, because their behaviour is just as important in shaping what 2026 looks like.
What we’ve noticed is that buyer behaviour at auction has changed materially since the boom years, with bidding becoming less speculative, yield assumptions tightening, and exit strategies becoming more conservative.
Higher borrowing costs mean capital growth can no longer be relied on to compensate for weak fundamentals. As a result, buyers are underwriting deals very differently from how they did just a few years ago.
They are working with lower growth assumptions, building in higher contingencies for refurbishment and regulatory compliance, planning for longer hold periods, and paying much closer attention to ongoing running costs.
You can see that shift clearly in clearance behaviour. Well-priced stock continues to attract competition, while poorly priced or structurally weak stock simply doesn’t
That is not a sign of fragility. It is a sign of a market that is functioning properly.
Sentiment data reinforces the same point. In December 2025, the RICS UK Residential Market Survey showed new buyer enquiries still firmly in negative territory, with a net balance of around -24%, while agreed sales were close to -19%.
That highlights a broader housing market where demand remained subdued, even as more sellers chose to come to market.
In simple terms, supply has been rising faster than demand. But that was not because sellers were being forced into the market. It was because more sellers were choosing to act.
That dynamic tends to feed into auctions earlier than it feeds into private-treaty sales, because auctions compress decision-making into a much shorter timeframe.
So as we move into 2026, what does all of this mean in practice?
First, volumes.
There is little evidence to suggest a sudden surge in forced selling. Buy-to-let repossessions and property company insolvencies remain reasonably contained. Mortgage arrears, while higher than they were, are not accelerating uncontrollably.
But at the same time, the structural pressures that have driven discretionary exits have not gone away.
Refinancing costs remain elevated, EPC obligations continue to weigh on certain stock, and regulatory change has added further complexity.
Refurbishment and development costs now render many projects unviable without a noticeable adjustment in sale price, while the ongoing management burden is higher than it was in the past.
That combination points to continued auction activity in 2026, but on a more selective and disciplined basis.
Second, pricing.
Much of the repricing has already taken place. Guide prices adjusted earlier in the auction market than elsewhere, which means 2026 is less likely to be about sharp, market-wide price falls and more about clear differentiation.
Assets that are priced realistically will trade. Those that are not will continue to struggle.
Third, outcomes.
2026 is shaping up to be a market where preparation matters more than ever. Understanding the buyer pool, pricing with evidence rather than hope, and choosing the right route to market will be critical.
At Property Solvers Auctions, we have maintained a completion rate of around 95 percent, not because auctions guarantee success, but because we are selective about what we take on and how we take it to market.
We do not treat auction as a one-size-fits-all solution.
Alongside traditional and auctions, we offer complementary routes, including pre-auction sales, investor matching, and direct cash sale solutions to our own acquisition companies, so that each property is aligned with what sellers are truly looking to achieve.
That approach becomes even more important in a market like 2026, where buyers are disciplined and pricing errors are punished quickly.
And if you are looking for opportunities at auction, the message is equally clear.
This is not a market of blanket bargains. Instead, opportunities are likely to be concentrated in yield-sensitive buy-to-let stock, properties affected by EPC and compliance challenges, flats with rising service charges, short-lease or more complex assets, and properties requiring refurbishment or capital expenditure.
In other words, value is more likely to sit in complexity rather than in prime, low-risk stock.
Success in 2026 will depend less on chasing volume and more on understanding risk, pricing it correctly, and being selective.
So when you step back and look at what auctions are signalling as move into the year, the message is consistent.
This is not a market on the brink, and it is not a return to speculative excess. It is a market that has already adjusted and is now operating on the basis of realism.
And historically, that is exactly when auctions tend to work best.
A massive thanks for watching to the end. If you’ve found this useful, please like the video and subscribe to the channel for more data-led insights on UK property auctions, grounded in real-world experience.
