Property Today

Whether you're after a nice town house or a luxury country property, the kind of home you're looking for will come up sooner or later at one of the UK's many auctions.

But these auctions aren't necessarily friendly places to go spending. You're basically in a three way battle between you, anyone else who wants to buy the property, and the property auctioneers.

It's their job to get as much for the house as possible. That's what the client selling it has employed them to do. Whereas you want to pay as little as possible!

Here are five smart tips to help you beat the other bidders in the room and spot any tricks property auctioneers may use.

1. Stand out:
If you're there to bid, make sure you can be seen. This doesn't mean wearing a high visibility jacket. Rather, don't hide at the side of the room and hope that the property auctioneers spot you feebly raising your hand. Think about all of the multi-tasking the auctioneer has to do, and make his or her job easier.

2. Use an agent:
A very viable alternative to attending the auction and bidding yourself is to get someone else to do it for you. A bidding agent will take instructions from you, including a strict ceiling of the most you are prepared to pay. They will then attend the auction and bid on your behalf.

There are pros and cons of using someone else. They will have less emotion during bidding, which is good as they won't be tempted to spend more than the budget. On the downside, they might not be able to push your maximum by a few pounds, where that might be the difference between winning or losing the property.

Some experts recommend hiring property auctioneers from another company to bid for you, as they will know all of the tricks and be more likely to get the property at the right price.

3. Bid by proxy, phone or internet
Other options open to you are to bid by proxy, where you tell the property auctioneers how much you are willing to pay and they will add your amount into the live auction; or to bid over the phone. Many auction houses also allow you to do live internet bidding. These are great if you are scared of the auction room or want to keep a low profile. The only problem is that you can't get a feel for the atmosphere in the room, or see who you are bidding against.

4. Be a jumper
This is the term used for someone who bids for something at the very last moment. It's a powerful way to ensure you get the property you want.

Let's say a house has lots of people trying to buy it, and the auction eventually becomes a battle between two people. Your job as a jumper is to wait until the last possible moment… then just before the auctioneer bangs his gavel, shout out a bid. To make it really powerful, make it a grand or two more than the current high bid.

This is a psychologically powerful move. Of the two people battling for the property, one has already pulled out, and the other was expecting to get the property for a certain price. Neither are likely to want to enter another bidding battle with you.

5. Spot phantom bids
Sometimes property auctioneers will seem to be receiving bids from the room – but actually there is no-one bidding! These are made up phantom bids. The auctioneer will throw them in to try and get the auction moving and generate some excitement.

By law, they can only do this up to the reserve – which is fine with them as it means they get the property sold. If you can spot it happening, it could be a good way of getting your hands on a bargain.

Sometimes auctioneers will subtly tell bidders that the reserve has been reached by using a sentence such as "it's in the room" or "it's going to be sold". So if you spot a house with phantom bids, little interest in the room but that has hit its reserve price, you've got a potential bargain on your hands.