Transactions
Off-market or bidding process — which delivers more?
Discretion versus price competition, compared on timeline, bidder count, abort risk and prices actually achieved.
The common assumption is that a broad bidding process delivers the highest price. That holds in some constellations and is demonstrably wrong in others. What decides it is how many genuinely serious buyers exist for the asset at all.
When the bidding process wins
For standardised assets with a deep buyer pool — residential portfolios in good locations, convenience retail with long leases, modern logistics — competition beats discretion. Ten serious bidders create price dynamics no single conversation can replicate.
The precondition is complete documentation. A bidding process with a patchy data room produces reservations instead of bids, and the second round becomes a negotiation downwards.
When off-market is ahead
For anything that needs explaining: operational assets, assets with a tenant base in transition, sales out of shareholder disputes, development land without planning consent. Perhaps five buyers understand the case. A broad process reaches the other two hundred, who only generate questions — and the market concludes the asset cannot be placed.
Reputation protection matters too. An asset visibly on the market that fails to sell is harder to place a year later than before.
What we usually do
A third route: structured approach to eight to fifteen pre-selected addresses, with a fixed bid deadline and clear rules. That creates competition without burning the asset.
Selecting those addresses is the actual work. We do it through personal contact, not databases — we know who has capital allocated and who is only watching the market.
In short
The depth of the buyer pool decides, not the process format. For assets that need explaining, targeted contact beats a broad process almost every time.
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Half an hour on the phone usually beats ten pages of paper.