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Buying and selling property at auction can seem intimidating. Fortunately, there are plenty of tips and guidance available to help the nervous first-timer. If you fall into this category or just want a quick refresher, here are a few pointers to get you started.

A. For Sellers

1. A property auction is a great way of selling a property quickly and with minimal hassle. It's also an excellent way of finding a buyer for somewhere that might struggle to attract interest on the open market. Even so, it's important to choose the right auction house. Some auctioneers are part of an estate agent; others are a dedicated auction house. There's no right or wrong type to pick; the crucial point is to choose one with relevant and recent experience at selling similar types of property in the same area.

2. Get an appraisal of your property from both an auction house and an estate agent to help assess which method of sale might result in a higher selling price.

3. Once you've chosen an auction house, instruct a solicitor. You'll need to work with them to put together the sale pack prior to the auction rather than, as would be the case with selling through an estate agent, after receiving an offer.

4. Make sure you understand how the reserve price relates to the guide price. Where the guide price is a range of figures, you must set a reserve price that lies within those same figures. Where the guide price is a single figure, your reserve price must be no more or less than 10 per cent either way.

5. If you want to drive up interest in your property, consider setting a relatively low guide (and hence reserve) price. If you're setting a guide price that's a range of figures, consider setting one that's considerably wider than you might do for an online property portal. This is because auction properties often exceed the guide price by a significant margin.

B. For Buyers

1. Decide where you want to buy and contact auction houses that cover the relevant areas. Ask to be put on their list to receive auction catalogues, but bear in mind that there's usually only around four weeks between a catalogue's publication and the auction itself.

2. Contact the auction house to arrange viewings of properties that interest you. Depending on the property, you might want to take a builder or architect to assess the building's condition and the likely cost of any future work. Equally, if you have any significant or outstanding concerns, you might decide to commission a survey.

3. Do your due diligence! We can't overstate the importance of this. A successful bid at an auction is a legal and financial obligation that's quite unlike making an offer via an estate agent. The time for second thoughts is before you make your bid.

4. Get your finances sorted. Much as with the due diligence point above, the commitment imposed on a successful bidder and the relatively tight timescale mean that you'll need to be ready to progress the transaction as soon as the hammer descends. If you need a mortgage to finance your purchase, you'll need a property that's mortgageable without retentions (i.e. one in which the lender will not hold back some of the funds until the completion of essential works). You'll also need a lender that can process your application in the short time frame between spotting a property in an auctioneer's catalogue and the day of the auction. An independent financial adviser can be very useful at this point. If you can't get a mortgage arranged in time, you might want to consider seeking specialist auction finance, although be aware that this is a short-term - and expensive - way of borrowing.

5. Once you've targeted a property (or properties), you need to decide how much you're willing to pay for it. In the heat of an auction, it's all too easy to get carried away and bid more than you intended to pay. Having a clear upper limit is the best way to guard against this happening. And if you're really worried, you could use a proxy bidder. Determining your upper limit will, of course, encompass a number of relevant factors: your own financial resources, the condition of the property and the projected costs for renovating and/or redecorating, and your intended use for the property.

6. If you're hoping to buy a home to live in, it's easy to be discouraged in the face of investor competition. However, while you may not always have the same financial resources as an investor, you may still manage to outbid one if your intended use for the property means that you perceive it to be worth more than does the investor's more objective calculation. That said, be careful not to put in a bid that would exceed comparable sold property prices by too much unless you are very certain of your long-term finances.

C. For Both

1. Remember that properties sold at auction are usually those that are either tricky to sell on the open market or that need selling in a hurry. The tricky-to-sell category can encompass repossessions; unmortgageable homes; homes with problem neighbours or other problematic issues such as Japanese knotweed, subsidence or a short lease; properties needing extensive refurbishment; mixed-use properties (for example, a shop with a residential flat above it); and properties with sitting tenants. All these types of homes have the potential to achieve higher sold property prices at auction than if they were sold through an estate agent. The stories behind rush sales, on the other hand, often stem from the vendor's financial difficulties. This may make the vendor more inclined to set a reserve price that's lower than they'd hope to achieve on the open market. However, whatever a property's provenance, competition from other interested bidders, particularly investors, often acts to drive up the selling price.

2. If you're attending in person, arrive early and make sure you know where you're going and where you can park.

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