Should I Sell My House by Auction? 3 Questions to Ask First

If you're wondering whether you should sell your house by auction, you might be stuck with the same two thoughts as most sellers. It sounds faster and more certain than an estate agent... but you've heard you lose money doing it.

I've worked closely with some of the UK's leading auction houses for years, and I've talked hundreds of sellers through this exact decision. I ask the same three questions every time, in the same order, to help uncover if auction's the right fit for them situation. I'll walk you through them in this article so you have your answer in the next few mins.

So, should you sell your house by auction?

Selling your house by auction suits a small group of sellers, mainly those with a serious problem property the open market struggles to sell. For most people with a normal home, auction means giving up around 10 to 15% of the value. The sale still takes three to four months, and a good estate agent sale nets far more.

But there's more to it than that. The three questions below will show you which group you're in, and there's one group auction is a genuinely bad idea for...

If you want to cut right to the chase instead and see whether auction is right for you, I've designed a free quiz to help with exactly that. It takes about 60 seconds and you get your results straight away.

If auction is a good fit, I'll introduce you to the number one auction house I've personally vetted and trust in your area on your results page. Hit the button below to get started:

Let's start with the first question. It has nothing to do with your current house. It's about your next one...

Question 1: Are you selling your house to buy your next home?

If you're selling your house to buy your next home, auction is a poor fit in almost any circumstance. The sale is legally binding the moment the hammer falls, usually with completion 28 days later. Your onward purchase runs on a slow, uncertain estate agent timetable, so you can be forced to complete with nowhere to go.

Here's the problem with auction for you.

If you sell at auction, when that hammer falls you've exchanged. The sale is legally binding, and completion is usually set for 28 days' time. So auctions run to fast, fixed timeframes.

Your onward purchase is probably going through an estate agent, and that process does not run to fast, fixed timeframes:

• Sales can drag on indefinitely.
  There's no deadline on a normal purchase, so it takes as long as it takes.
• Sales can fall through for any reason.
  Your solicitor might find something. Or your surveyor might. Either one can mean you have to pull out of the house you're buying. It happens more often than most people expect, and I've written about how often house sales fall through.

So the risk for you is this: You're locked into your sale, but your purchase doesn't complete in time, or it falls through entirely. So you're legally forced to complete on your own sale without having anywhere to go.

That can leave you scrambling to:

• Move in with family.
• Book an Airbnb or a short let.
• Find a rental.

Any of those means more cost, and moving home twice. It's a nightmare.

If your plan is to buy and move straight into your next home, auction is a nasty gamble with terrible odds for you.

It just doesn't fit, and I wouldn't recommend it in almost any circumstance. My guide to the most common property chain problems shows why chains and fixed dates clash so badly.

So what should you do instead?

You might have been drawn to auction because it promises speed, and the feeling that someone's actually driving the sale. You can still get most of that on the open market, without the legal lock-in.

That's exactly what my team and I do for sellers. We call it our accelerated sale service. We run your sale on the open market, so it moves faster than a typical estate agent sale, and you keep far more money than you would at auction.

Once we've agreed a sale, our sales fall through around 3 to 4 times less often than the national average. When you've got an onward purchase to protect, that matters a lot.

If you're not buying onward, read on. Question two is about the house itself, and for some sellers it seals the decision in 60 seconds...

Question 2: Has your house got a serious problem?

A house with a serious problem, such as subsidence, structural movement or a legal issue that makes it unmortgageable, is often best sold at auction. The open market struggles with homes like these, so sales fall through and sellers lose months. An auction room is full of professional buyers who want exactly these projects.

I'm talking about problems like:

• Subsidence.
  I cover this one in detail in can you sell a house with subsidence.
• Structural movement.
  Anything a surveyor would flag as structural rather than cosmetic.
• Legal issues.
  A problem with the title or the paperwork that stops a buyer getting a mortgage.

What happens when you sell a problem property with an estate agent

First, the agent doesn't see these problems very often. Having been around a lot of these sales, I've found agents often won't know how to deal with them, and might not even believe the house will sell. So we've often seen them spend less time on it for you.

Next, buyers get spooked, and in three ways:

1. Fewer viewings.
   People hear about the problem and don't book.
2. Fewer offers.
   The people who do view are less likely to offer because of it.
3. More fall-throughs.
   Even when someone does offer, I've seen this so many times. The buyer thinks "OK, I can handle that, we'll fix it." Then their surveyor spooks them. Or their solicitor. Or their mate at the pub tells them they're crazy.

And so a doom loop can start:

1. Wait for a buyer.
2. Agree a sale.
3. Watch it fall through.
4. Repeat.

Some sellers end up a year in with the estate agent and still back at square one. And every lap round the loop makes the property look worse to the next buyer.

So to avoid the whole problem, I typically don't recommend selling an unmortgageable problem property through an estate agent at all.

Your two real options with a problem property

Instead, if you're in this position, I deal with it in one of two ways:

1. Option 1: Fix it.
   Resolve the legal issue, or repair the building, whatever it is. You'll almost always end up with more money this way. But it can take a lot of time. Some issues take a year or two to resolve once solicitors, builders or insurers are involved. And you might need to invest a lot of money too, so not everyone has the luxury of this option.
2. Option 2: Sell at auction.
   If you don't want to fix the issue, or you don't have the time or the cash, this is where you go straight to auction. You put it in front of a room full of professional buyers who don't run from problems. They're actively looking for them, because that's where they make their money. They bid against each other, so you end up with a decent price, no fall-throughs, and you walk away from the issue. You'll almost certainly net less than if you'd fixed it yourself. But it's faster, and without the pitfalls of the estate agent route.

One of our readers sold a house with subsidence this way, from the other side of the world:

Related: Case Study: Selling with subsidence (from 9,000 miles away)

So if this is your house, I feel like you're not really choosing auction at all - auction's choosing you.

If this is your situation, here's what I'd suggest. I've built a free auction quiz to help you firm up that decision, and make sure auction genuinely is your best option. It asks a few questions and takes about 60 seconds.

Then, if auction is the right fit, your results page connects you directly with the number one auction house I've personally vetted and trust in your area. Hit the button below to get started:

Now, moving on. What if you have a "normal" house, with no serious issues, and you're not buying onward? Well, then you've got a genuine decision to make...

Question 3: Is it worth selling a normal house by auction?

For a normal house with no serious problems, selling by auction is usually not worth it. It typically takes three to four months, and around 1 in 3 fail to sell. You also give up around 10 to 15% of your home's full value. A well-managed estate agent sale tends to deliver speed and certainty without the price cut.

You may be considering auction because you want to avoid the crazy estate agent process, and you basically want a faster, more certain sale. Auction can deliver some of that. But not perfectly, and it does so at a price.

So let me show you the facts, taking speed, certainty and cost in turn.

How fast is selling a house by auction?

Some people think it's done and dusted in a month. Unfortunately, it isn't. There are a lot of steps:

1. Sign up with the auction house.
2. Prepare your legal pack.
3. Wait for the next auction cycle to start.
4. A month of marketing in the run-up to auction day.
5. Completion.
   If you do find a buyer, they usually get a month to complete, sometimes more.

Add it all up and it's typically three to four months until you're over the finish line. It's not lightning fast. I break the timeline down step by step in how long it takes to sell at auction.

How certain is selling a house by auction?

About 1 in 3 residential properties put up for auction don’t sell. That surprises a lot of people.

But the latest numbers back it up. According to EIG, who are the industry standard for property auction data in the UK, only 65.6% of residential lots offered at auction in September 2026 actually sold. A year earlier, it was 71.7%.

It’s been around that level all year:

• May 2026. 66.7% of residential lots sold.
• July 2026. 64.4% sold, so more than 1 in 3 didn’t.
• Sept 2026. 65.6% sold.

The reason is fairly simple. More homes are going into auction rooms than there are buyers to take them. Over the 12 months to September, the number of residential lots offered rose by 11.3%, but the number sold rose by only 9.1%.

And there are two things on top of that which might be relevant to you:

• I believe the real numbers are actually worse than the official ones.
  Auction houses protect their success rates and want them to look as good as possible. Having worked closely with them for years, here's what I've seen. If a property has had no interest and isn't going to get bids, they quietly withdraw it from the auction. It never shows up as failing to sell, but that seller went through the whole process, and auction failed for them.
• A normal house is a less natural fit for the room.
  Your own chance of selling varies with your property. If your home has no serious issues, the reality is it can be even less likely to sell at auction. The professionals came for projects, not a nice family home that's ready to move into.

So on speed and certainty, auction might not be as good as you think. To be clear, it's still faster than the average estate agent sale. And it does come with a higher chance of success too.

But at what cost?

How much money do you lose selling a house by auction?

Auction fees are one thing. But the greater cost is that properties don't usually sell for their full value at auction. Typically, you'd expect to lose around 10 to 15% of your property's full value.

On a £250,000 home, that's roughly £25,000 to £40,000 you're giving up.

You lose that much for two reasons:

1. Far fewer buyers.
   Most people can't buy at auction, or they just don't want to. Fewer potential buyers means less competition to push the price up.
2. The buyers who do come want a bargain.
   People who go to the hassle of buying at auction are usually doing it because they want a deal. So they're the people who pay the lowest price.

So there's a serious cost to selling a normal house by auction. Here's how the two routes stack up:

The seven-month figure is from Rightmoves research in July 2026, and it's roughly in line with what we see.

And so the plan, I feel, in these situations is simple. If you don't have a problem property, you don't need auction. So what should you do instead?...

What to do instead of auction if you have a normal house

I know you want to avoid the broken estate agent process. It can be such a nightmare. But what I've learned over time is that the estate agent process isn't completely broken, like most people think.

It's just really badly managed.

The estate agent process isn't broken. It's just really badly managed.

Just so you know a bit about my background: I've been selling properties through estate agents for 15 years. I've sold over 500 properties for clients, and I've bought and sold over 100 of my own properties too.

Over that time, my team and I developed our own way of getting through the process. We've proven time and time again that you can reliably sell far faster than a normal estate agent sale, and often net tens of thousands more than at auction. I share some of my method in my guide to selling your house fast for the best price.

We now offer it as a service too. We're a small team, so we only take on a limited number of clients. Here are a few real client results:

• More progress in 3 days than in 5 months.
  One client told us we'd made more progress in the first three days than his estate agent had made in five months.
• 9 months with no offers, then sold over asking in 33 days.
  Another had been on the market for nine months without a single offer. She came to us and sold over the asking price in 33 days.
• Launched, viewed, offered and sold in 11 days.
  Another launched quickly, had viewings and offers, and agreed a sale, all within 11 days.

One more thing. Once we have a sale agreed, our sales fall through around 3 to 4 times less often than the national average. That's down to the extra things we do throughout the process, so the sale is a lot more secure as well.

So if this is you, with no serious property issues, and you just want more speed and more certainty, this is exactly what we do for clients. We call it our accelerated sale service. You sell faster than you would through an estate agent, but for far more money than you'd get selling through auction.

It's the same route I pointed the chain sellers to in question one. It gets you the speed and the momentum, without the legal lock-in.

So where does that leave you? Let's pull the three questions together...

Is selling my house by auction right for me?

Run the three questions in order, and the answer tends to fall out on its own:

1. Selling to buy your next home?
   Auction is a very bad fit. The binding, fixed-date sale and your slow onward purchase don't mix.
2. Serious problem property?
   Auction is very likely your best option, unless you have the time and money to fix the issue first.
3. Normal house, and you just want speed and certainty?
   You don't need auction. It costs you 10 to 15% and still takes months. A properly run estate agent sale gets you there for far more money.

If you'd rather watch than read, I walk through all three questions in the video this guide is based on.

And if you want to go deeper on the trade-offs, these two guides cover them in detail:

Related: Is It Worth Selling Your House by Auction? [Find Out In 4 Simple Steps] and Selling a house by auction vs estate agent.

If you still think auction is right for you, take the short quiz I designed for you. It takes 60 seconds, and if auction is the right fit, I can connect you with the auction houses we've personally vetted and trust in your area.

Thanks for reading, and hit the button below to get started:

Common questions about selling your house by auction

Here are the questions I get asked most often when sellers are weighing up auction:

1

Should I sell my house by auction if I'm buying another home at the same time?

Selling your house by auction while buying your next home is a poor fit in almost every case. The auction sale is legally binding on the day, usually with completion 28 days later, but your onward purchase runs on a slow estate agent timetable. If that purchase drags or falls through, you still have to complete, with nowhere to go.

2

Is it worth selling your house by auction if it has subsidence or structural problems?

A house with subsidence, structural movement or a legal problem that makes it unmortgageable is the kind of property auction suits best. The open market struggles with these homes, so sales keep falling through. Auction rooms are full of professional buyers who want these projects and bid against each other, so you get a decent price with no fall-throughs.

3

How long does it take to sell a house at auction in the UK?

Selling a house at auction in the UK typically takes three to four months from start to finish. You sign up with the auction house, prepare a legal pack and wait for the next auction cycle, then the property is marketed for around a month. If it sells, the buyer usually has about a month to complete, sometimes more.

4

What percentage of houses don't sell at auction?

Around 1 in 3 properties entered into UK auctions fail to sell, according to EIG, the industry standard for property auction data. The real figure is likely worse though, because auction houses often quietly withdraw lots that have attracted no interest before auction day, so those never show up as unsold in the official numbers.

5

How much less do you get selling a house at auction?

Properties typically sell for around 10 to 15% less than their full value at auction, on top of the auction fees. On a £250,000 home that is roughly £25,000 to £40,000. The gap exists because far fewer people can or want to buy at auction, and those who do are usually there looking for a bargain.

6

What are the pros and cons of selling a house at auction?

The main pros of selling a house at auction are a legally binding sale the moment the hammer falls, a faster sale than the average estate agent, and buyers who take on problem properties. The main cons are a price around 10 to 15% below full value, auction fees, a three to four month process, and around 1 in 3 lots failing to sell.