About RAPID
RAPID stands for Residential Auction Property Investment Data. It is a joint initiative between Allsop, a leading property consultant and the UK’s largest property auction house, and the Essential Information Group (EIG), the leading provider of property auction results and information in the UK.

What does RAPID do
RAPID analyses the data recorded in relation to residential auction disposals. The data is drawn from auction lots offered since January 2000 covering England, Wales and Scotland. Such is the scale of the property auction industry now that Allsop and EIG identified the need for a regular source of detailed data and analysis. Up to 50 individual fields of data have been recorded by EIG for each transaction and Allsop, as one of the leading firms in the residential investment sector, is able to analyse sales results in numerous ways. The data is derived from purely residential property uses and does not include, for example, mixed use buildings.

What does RAPID not do?
RAPID does not profess to provide a residential investment index. Its primary function is data collection, interpretation and analysis. Investment indices track the performance of the same sample data, for example, company shares (FTSE 100) or a relatively static group of property portfolios (IPD). By definition, auctions will see different properties traded at each sale. Consequently, RAPID should be regarded as presenting data and interpreting trends rather than as an industry index.

RAPID Areas
We define the four geographical areas as follows:

• Area 1 Central and Inner London
• Area 2 Outer London, South East and Eastern
• Area 3 Midlands, Wales and South West
• Area 4 Northern England and Scotland

(The sample of available data from Northern Ireland has been excluded due to its small size).

Distressed Sales
We define “distressed lots” as repossession, receivership, administration and liquidation sales.

ASTs
ASTs include both single units and multi-let buildings which are wholly and exclusively subject to ASTs.

The following types of property have been excluded in order to avoid distortion of results:

• those subject to mixed tenancy types
• part vacant buildings
• those with development value that would otherwise have been included in the sample set
• the top and bottom 5% sets

It should be noted that yields shown on the published graphs are calculated by expressing gross rental income relative to investment value. In other words, transactions analysed are those which took place with tenants in occupation at the date of sale. (These should be distinguished from many private treaty acquisitions of vacant houses or flats which are let subsequently in which yields are expressed relative to the vacant possession value).

Source
Essential Information Group Ltd, Land Registry, Council of Mortgage Lenders

Data sample has been taken from:
Issue 4: 444 residential auctioneers across the UK, and from information compiled from a data set of around 177,000 individual auction lots (which in total raised £17.2bn) for general analysis and 19,335 for AST analysis.

Issue 3: 325 residential auctioneers across the UK, and from information compiled from a data set of around 169,000 individual auction lots (which in total raised £15.05bn) for general analysis.

Issue 2: 355 residential auctioneers across the UK, and from information compiled from a data set of around 146,000 individual auction lots (which in total raised £13.2bn) for general analysis.

Issue 1: 141 residential auctioneers across the UK, and from information compiled from a data set of around 138,000 individual auction lots (which in total raised £11.7bn) for general analysis and 12,140 for AST analysis.