Sutton Kersh put on a good show for Homes Under the Hammer and Marie Curie Cancer Care selling 42 of the 73 properties available at its auction last week and raising over £1000 for the charity.

The auction, which took place at the Marriott Hotel in Liverpool City Centre was well attended. For every property that sold in the room, the leading Merseyside auction house donated £50 to the charity in support of its Blooming Great Tea Party Campaign.

Residential investment properties proved to be particularly popular accounting for over 62% of the sales. The total revenue for the event so far stands at just over £2million with more deals expected to be completed over the coming week.

Cheap property deals seemed to be the order of the day with the majority of properties sold falling within the £25,000 - £60,000 guide price bracket. Amongst the best selling lots of the day was a vacant three bedroom mid town house  in Montrovia Crescent near to Aintree hospital. Highlighted as being suitable for investment or occupation purposes the property was guided at £45,000+ and eventually sold in the room for £57,000.

Another property that attracted a good level of bidding was lot 41, a residential investment property on Ridgemont Avenue in Norris Green. The three bedroom middle terrace property is currently let by way of an Assured Shorthold Tenancy at a rental of £6,000 per annum. Guided at just £45,000+ the property sold for £55,000 providing the new owner with a rental yield of 10.9% per annum.

Cathy Holt, auction manager at Sutton Kersh commented "It wasn't our best auction of the year although we did manage to sell 40 properties and expect this to rise to 50 with post sales. There were a lot of competitive bids in the room, primarily for cheap investment properties with a good rent return. After speaking to a number of investors in the room it is clear that funding is still a major problem for investors. Whilst they recognise that there are a lot of good deals available in the current marketplace, they do not have finance readily available to be able to buy. Investors are looking for cheap properties with a minimum of a 10% return, and in some cases more.  We can't feel too disheartened by the sale. We have sold over 200 properties across 4 auctions so far this year raising in excess of £12.5million, which is no mean achievement in what continues to be a tricky marketplace."