Asks the Times' Ben West.

At Allsop's London auction last December, 88 of the 110 lots sold above the guide price. Those included a former goods yard in Sussex with a guide price of £1 million-£1.25 million that went for £2.235 million; land in South Wales with a guide of £1,000 that sold for £18,500; ground rent on a flat in St John's Wood, northwest London, with a guide price of £22,000 that sold for £73,000; and the £645,000 flat in Earls Court Road that had a guide price of £150,000-£175,000.

So what's going on? Well, it looks like a combination of two factors. Certainly, guide prices are set deliberately low, to make the auctions seem more attractive to the naive. And then, when the naive turn up, there's what I call the Ebay effect... a complete lack of self-control on the part of buyers programmed to treat an auction like a competition. (Hey, I won!) It's an interesting article, with some useful advice for those looking for a property auction bargain.