Former local history centre sells for £610k
A former local history centre in Bloxwich went for £610,000 in an online auction.
The building in Essex Street, which was sold on behalf of Walsall Council , had a guide price of £290,000 in the Bond Wolfe sale on Thursday, May 19.
The centre started life as a school in 1904 and originally housed North Walsall Junior and Infants School. The property included a caretaker’s house and parking.
The local history centre opened on the site in 1986 but has since moved to the central library in Walsall town centre.
Bond Wolfe is to return to a live auction room for the first time in two-and-a-half years when the Birmingham-based business holds its next property sale on July 21 at its previous regular venue of the Holte Suite at Aston Villa's Villa Park ground. It will be both live in the room and livestreamed online.
Gurpreet Bassi, chief executive of Bond Wolfe, said: “The Covid 19 pandemic hit all sectors of the UK economy like a ton of bricks in March 2020, but we were well placed to move the business wholly online with minimal disruption after our first live streamed auction.
“However, we feel that many of our clients have missed the atmosphere of the auction room and the opportunity for networking and inter-trading that is a natural result of like-minded entrepreneurs interacting in the way they can at a physical event."
The latest auction saw more than £26 million raised in sales, with 142 lots sold from 154.
During the day 17,215 viewers logged in to watch the auction live, and in the marketing run-up to the day of the auction, there were 517,037 website page views, 139,195 video tours watched and 31,278 legal documents downloaded.
Mr Bassi added: “There is evidence from our results that demand is still outstripping supply and we had buyers logging in from across the UK and abroad."
The appetite for industrial property in the West Midlands is very strong at present, as evidenced by the sale of Unit 5a, Kelvin Way, West Bromwich, a freehold industrial/warehouse unit of 6,755 sq ft which was offered with a guide price of £385,000 and sold before the auction day for £550,000.
