With owner-occupiers mostly removed from residential auction rooms because they are unable to arrange the finance necessary to complete within a month in advance of a sale, property developers are snapping up some enviable bargains as auctioneers keep prices deliberately low.

David Sandeman, managing director of Essential Information Group (EIG), says: "Auctioneers are being extremely careful when it comes to setting the reserve price, at which they are bound to let a property be sold.

"If the guide price looks attractive, buyers will go along to sales on the understanding that the reserve price is little more. In fact, reserve and guide prices may be one and the same figure, when a vendor wants to offload as soon as possible."

Figures from EIG indicate that around 69 per cent of lots going under the hammer are being sold - roughly in line with the long-term average of just more than 70 per cent.

Paul Mooney, part of Savills, added: "It is fair to say that dinner table developers - mainly private owner-occupiers - who were active three years ago can no longer afford to get involved.

"Now bidders tend to be professionals, usually with private backers holding cash who prefer to see their money working for them, instead of sitting in savings account on relatively low interest rates."

Clive Emson, specialising in mainly residential units in south-east England from Kent to Cornwall, begins a series of sales at the Ramada Hotel, near Maidstone, on Monday, April 4.

Interesting lots include a two-bedroom flat with a private entrance near the beach at Westgate-on-Sea (£45,000 to 50,000); a three-storey end-terrace cottage close to local shops and a mainline rail station in the village of Chelsfield, near Orpington, (£140,000 to 150,000) earning £795 per month on an assured shorthold tenancy; and Grade II listed Repton Manor, near Ashford, that has planning permission to be turned into offices (£240,000 to £250,000).

• More information at www.cliveemson.co.uk