Market Intelligence
Clouds over the online?
RM, the Canadian auction house, recently held a virtual auction for the European market with 107 cars. Despite high expectations, only 60 cars were sold, resulting in a sales rate of 56.63%. RM sold just €7,774,375 out of the €18,183,000 on offer. The auction house believes this result is due to oversupply, which has made buyers delay purchases while waiting for better opportunities, and the novelty effect of online auctions diminishing. RM has announced that they will return to in-person auctions in September. The auction's top lot was a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB Alloy by Scaglietti, which sold for €1,430,000. The auction also featured a 1989 Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante 'X-Pack', which sold for €230,000 and a 2004 Maybach 57, which sold for €52,800.
The recent successes of RM's online auctions have galvanized the Canadian auction house and this has led to the addition of two new virtual appointments to its summer calendar.
The first of these two events was reserved for the European market with 107 cars (two of which were pre-war models with the rest evenly distributed across the following decades), with a very good mix from every point of view, from the brands – Ferrari, the most common, making up just one-sixth of the total offer – to the price ranges which went from €10,000 to €2,000,000.
In reality, despite the excellent premises, this sale disappointed expectations somewhat because with just 60 cars sold (out of 107) it claimed a sales rate of 56.63% while in terms of value it sold just €7,774,375 out of the €18,183,000 on offer – plus an additional €610,000 of automobilia, boats, tractors, etc., failing to go beyond a “poor” (by the high standards to which RM has accustomed us) 42.75%.
