Every week, hundreds of commercial and residential properties are sold at auction in Britain, often at bargain prices, with owner-occupiers accounting for a growing proportion of buyers. What's attracting them is the chance of picking up genuine bargains in the face of otherwise inflated prices in the property market.

In this bestselling guide, recently revised and updated for its fourth edition, author Howard Gooddie, a property auctioneer with 45 years' experience, spells out how straightforward the auction route can be and divulges the tips and practices of this relatively unknown world.

Buying Bargains at Property Auctions assumes no previous knowledge of the subject and presents a clear step-by-step guide to what happens both before and after the auction. There are chapters on the places to pick up your bargain, how to find your bargain property, clearing the contracts and arranging the finance before the auction, bidding and winning, what happens after the auction, selling your property at auction and an insider's guide to an auction house. It also relates the experiences of people who have actually bought property at auction and includes various necessary legal forms.

About the Author

Howard Gooddie is a freelance auctioneer, having recently retired from being head of auctions at Longden & Cook Commercial in Manchester, one of the city's oldest firms of Chartered Surveyors.

Howard is well-known as a principal contributor to the monthly magazine Property Auction News and features as chairman and main lecturer at their bi-annual conference. Now he principally performs, with his ivory gavel, on the rostrum for Edward Mellor, a 15-branch firm of estate agents in Manchester and Cheshire.

1. Auctions - the place to pick up a bargain
2. How to find your bargain property
3. Clearing the contracts and arranging the finance before the auction
4. Going for your bargain
5. Bidding and winning your bargain
6. After the auction - what happens next?
7. The insider's guide to an auction house
8. Thinking of selling your property?
9. 'We bought at auction' - what buyers have to say