In December we looked at the importance of developing a personal strategy. We start 2014 looking at Lot Analysis and Due Diligence, which should be completed before you view a property, ideally you should only be viewing properties that have passed or met all your due diligence criteria. There is no point in viewing auction property on the off-chance unless you have time to waste.

To help with Due Diligence, I developed the Auction Lot Analyser to record all the data. On You Tube you can find a series of, how to use, videos. To find, open You Tube and search 'David Humphreys Lot Analyser'.

Before the auction catalogue is released, you need to identify all your sources of due diligence information. You also need to know where to find what at websites such as Rightmove, or a similar portal like Google Street View. You will probably be familiar with both, plus perhaps some less well-known sites, such as EPC Register and DirectGov, (LHA rents). You often only have 4-8 days between catalogue release and the first viewing day and you don't want to be searching for possibly critical information on a website that you are not familiar with.

When viewing, you need to learn a technique called Speed Viewing by viewing a lot in around 10 minutes. In most low-cost locations there are at least 3 multi-person viewing slots of 15-20 min over 15-20 days. Multi-person can mean any number from 2-102+. Viewing with a few people is easy, viewing with 100+ is chaotic but you still have to gather all the information you need regardless of the number viewing. It's 'elbow' time and I will cover Speed Viewing next month.

To carry out thorough property due diligence you can either work off the auctioneers catalogue or join the membership site at eigroup.co.uk. Either way you will visit a number of property websites to gather the information you need.