Slow start in South Africa for BidX1
Online auctioneer BidX1 sold less than half of the 68 lots on offer in its first South African sale.
The auctioneer, which teamed up with South African firm Pam Golding Properties, sold 29 properties during the sale, which ran from March to 10 April. The sales raised R22.9m (£1.2m).
The sale included mainly residential lots from several regions in South Africa.
Online auctioneer BidX1 sold less than half of the 68 lots on offer in its first South African sale.
The auctioneer, which teamed up with South African firm Pam Golding Properties, sold 29 properties during the sale, which ran from March to 10 April. The sales raised R22.9m (£1.2m).
The sale included mainly residential lots from several regions in South Africa.
One of the highest value lots to sell was a four-bedroom detached house in Johannesburg, which sold for R1.5m.
The two biggest lots of the sale – a four-bedroom house set on a private wine estate with views of the Botrivier Lagoon and Kogelberg Mountains in Hermanus, and a four-bedroom manor house in the Houghton Estate, some 5km outside Johannesburg – were both being offered with a guide price of R7m. Both remain available.
BidX1 chief financial officer Mike Murphy said: “We are the first European digital platform to enter the African market, which is a milestone. To us the sole purpose of this auction was not to focus on completion rates but to provide full transparency in the process and educate the market, showing vendors that there is a new way to sell.”
The sale is part of Ireland-based BidX1’s ambitions to take its digital auction platform global.
Alongside South Africa, Ireland and the UK, BidX1 has recently launched offices in Madrid and Nicosia in Cyprus.
Stephen McCarthy, founder and managing director at BidX1, said he was looking forward to “building momentum” for the international expansion of the digital auctions platform.
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