I recently listened to a talk by Andrew Binstock, who co-founded Auction House London in 2011. He gave an 'unassisted by slides' 90 minutes talk on the vagaries of buying and selling at auction, 'warts and all'. Andrew was the principal speaker at the monthly Bucks Property Meet held on the last Thursday of the month at The Bull Hotel, Gerrards Cross.

If you have never made this monthly network meeting, it is well worth the effort because, along with the Guildford Property Exchange, they are in my opinion the two best network meetings in the south-east, principally because, aside from expert speakers every month, the layout involves circular tables, each with at least one experienced investor, which makes the atmosphere very convivial.

Along with a vast amount of good information & advice, he touched on 4 aspects which may be of interest to PIN magazine readers interested in auctions.

1) Bids off the wall, 2) the relationship between 'guide' and 'reserve' prices, 3) to survey pre-auction or not, 4) underwriting lots pre-auction.