Acuitus auctioneer helps usher new high street era

Mhairi Archibald, of Acuitus Auctions, has seen business increase during Covid, from six to eight auctions a year, partly dictated by the specifics of selling property online during the pandemic.

“Auction can be a useful way to sell property in a couple of ways,” she said. “It can take perhaps more challenged properties, which is maybe its reputation, and get them out to a really wide audience.

“Also, where it can sometimes be quite helpful is where properties have been marketed in the private treaty market, sometimes for a few months but also sometimes for a couple of years, by putting something in auction it suddenly bucks up people ideas, and that it is not going to be around forever.”

The market has been busy throughout Covid but some properties have been attracting different investors than pre-pandemic.

Ms Archibald said: “In terms of Scottish properties, I would say half of my buyers are from the rest of the UK, and half are Scottish. So, you have quite a mix of types of investors.

“Am I seeing things now that I maybe wouldn’t have seen pre-pandemic? Or even talking even slightly further historically? For example, in December last year we auctioned the Wellgate Shopping Centre in Dundee, and that got quite a ot of press partly because of the pricing, and there was good reason for that pricing.

“If you look back not that long ago that would have been something that would never have gone into an auction.

“That would have been a sale by private treaty and probably would have been a sale between two institutions, or an institution and a very large property company.

“What we discovered when looking at the detail of the shopping centre was that it had a negative income.

“Having lost lots of retailers and still having costs, it’s a 1970s shopping centre, air conditioning, plant machinery are all getting towards the end of their lives and needing a bit of care and attention."

Wellgate had a guide price of £500,000

She added: “You could argue that somebody was going to be taking on a liability there more than an asset. So that every much influenced our pricing, and when we were guiding it for £500,000 for 583,000 square feet of retail space that caught a lot of people’s eye.

“What became apparent from the types of interest we had in that property was that there were no institutions and there were no large corporate companies, and instead there were a lot of what you might call entrepreneurial investors, with experience, but quite nimble.”

READ MORE: Shopping centre sells for three times guide price

It sold for three times the guide price. She continued: “These were people who could take a property that size, take on the management, and they could deliver letting to whoever they want, because they don’t have to go through the same processes the big institutions do.

“I thought that was a really interesting process. It brought out half a dozen serious investors for that type of property. These guys and girls are realising that they can buy quite a big chunk of a town or city centre.

“They could never acquire that in any other circumstances and the market has brought that out. We had the Wellgate in December and we are hopeful we will have another Scottish shopping centre in May.”

'My world can be pretty widespread' - Mhairi Archibald.

She added: “My feeling is that the buyer of the Wellgate is the right kind of buyer.

“Institutions are no longer the right kind of buyer for that kind of property. Gone are the days when 80 per cent of your units are all let to the high street names that we all used to know, they would would all be on 25-year leases and it was dead easy. These institutions are not the right people to be making quick decisions or giving Jimmy Smith a chance with his vegetable stall.”

Ms Archibald said there could be scope for different kinds of venture within the Wellgate, such as a dental practice. “This kind of property could have been seen as management intensive but often these guys will take their management in-house anyway,” she said

"My world can be pretty widespread," Ms Archibald continued. "I could be pricing an amusement arcade in Airdrie and then 75,000 square feet of vacant headquarters in Aberdeen, so it is great for variety.

"I’ve watched particularly over the last ten years lots of market towns, and I feel now they are getting up off their knees now, different things are happening, so maybe part of what we do is moving that market and moving it to buyers who wouldn’t ordinarily look in those towns."

Q&A

What countries have you visited and why they were appealing?

Two extremes perhaps: South Eastern India (Chennai and Puducherry) in connection with charity work and also Riksgransen, 200km north of the Arctic Circle in Northern Sweden, where I heli-skied last month. Both fascinating. One for its extremes in population and heat and order amongst seeming chaos and other for the extreme of cold and wilderness and order amongst no chaos.

What was your ideal job when you were a child?

I always thought I would want to be a pathologist and have a continued morbid curiosity through books and film and TV.
What was your biggest break in business?
Two things: when I set out as self-employed because this brought huge satisfaction. And on the back of that creating the role I have as consultant for the Scottish Acuitus auction operation.

And your worst moment in business?

Probably the occasional times at the start of my career of total fear inspecting long vacant and often “inhabited” commercial buildings 
– animal or human!

Who do you most admire and why?

I have two fellow female chartered surveyor friends who have juggled motherhood and careers with tenacity, determination, and humour. My admiration for them both is huge and our collective notebook of the good and bad of working in a male-dominated industry is fantastic.

Which book are you reading and what music are you listening to?

I have gone back to A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – a book I read at school and loved. I had forgotten how dark it is.

I’m listening to The War On Drugs, Jill Andrews, London Grammar and Sia.