Auctions & New Homes

Most UK homes are sold by private treaty: listed at a price, negotiated, then a legal process with no binding commitment until exchange. Auctions and new-build sales both replace that with something more structured — a deadline and a binding or semi-binding commitment in one case, a reservation against a plot that may not yet exist in the other. Different enough from a normal resale that they need their own software.

Key Features

• Online bidding, reserve prices, and timed or live auction formats
• Legal packs published before bidding, so buyers commit having seen the title
• Reservation and plot management for developments sold off-plan
• Sales progression across developer, agent, conveyancer and broker
• Incentive and part-exchange handling on new-build schemes
• Integration with agency CRMs, since auction and new-build stock is often marketed by high-street branches

UK Market Shape

Auctions divide into the traditional method, where the fall of the hammer creates a binding contract and completion follows in weeks, and the modern or conditional method, where the winning bidder pays a non-refundable reservation fee and gets a longer period to exchange. The modern method opened auction to mortgage-dependent buyers and to ordinary high-street agents, which is why it is usually distributed through agency branch networks rather than a dedicated auction house.

New-build sales are a different problem: the seller is a housebuilder with many units on one site, sales happen off-plan against build programmes, and the buyer often needs a mortgage on a property with no completion date. The software reflects that — plot-level inventory, reservation workflows, and progression tools built for a developer’s sales director rather than a branch manager.