The latest Acuitus/IPD Commercial Property Auction Data (cPad) report analyses the £171m of commercial property assets that sold at auction during February and March and illustrates the strength of investor demand. The All-Property sale rate at the first auctions of 2015 was 86% which even surpasses the sale rates achieved in the 2005-2007 boom market.

Although the volume of assets sold in the first auctions of this year was slightly down on the corresponding period last year, the comparative average sale price year-on- year was up to £737,446 - nearly 6% higher than in 2014.

Acuitus auctioneer, Richard Auterac, comments: “In essence, the supply of assets into the room has not kept pace with the sustained increased investor demand that is fuelled by rising GDP, income growth and the increased supply of debt funding.

“Demand for retail assets is particularly strong and shows that private investors have rekindled their love affair with shops. The woes of the High Street are now fading in the minds of investors.”

cPad now gives a Rolling Average Yields (RAY) rather than a spot yield for properties selling at auction. This will smooth out the fluctuation in yields that can occur between auction rounds in a single year.

The February and March auctions showed a hardening of the All-Property RAY by 11 basis points as it moved in to 8.62% from its December 2014 level of 8.73%.