Imagine a world where, for a fee of less than £50, you can sell your home to the highest bidder safely and securely, bypassing the need for all those nasty handling mark-ups demanded by estate agents and auctioneers. Well, the future has arrived: it is online auctions, and if it works it could save homebuyers and sellers a small fortune.

The internet has led to a revolution in the way people look for property, and already there are sites that facilitate private sales, bypassing agent fees, which on average are 1.5%. Now, Andrew Binstock, a self-confessed auction addict from Middlesex, is taking that concept one step further with www.auctionyourproperty.com.

“Auctions have a real stigma about them — that they only attract the professional investors,” he says. “I think there are plenty of people who, if they knew a bit more about it, would be interested in buying or selling this way. I wanted to bring auctions to everybody.”

Binstock, 30, has been in and out of the auction business since leaving Birmingham university with an economics degree.

A stint as a junior at auction house Allsop whetted his appetite for the business. He left it to pursue property development, but four years later, bored with working alone, he joined Sutton Kersh, a Liverpool-based auctioneer. Wielding a gavel for the first time in February, he set a local auction sales record with 90% of lots sold on the day. For the past 18 months he has also been developing his online baby with his business partner, Claude Schneider, 28.

For a listings fee of £49 plus Vat, sellers can list properties for auction; potential bidders register for the same amount. The auction date is set weeks ahead, allowing time for inspections and surveys, organised directly between vendor and potential bidders. After the auction, the successful bidder has a week to send a 1% non-refundable deposit to the vendor’s solicitor and then has six weeks to exchange, or lose the right to buy.

At a normal auction, it’s quite different. Fees vary, but Gary Murphy of Allsop says most residential auctioneers charge a buyers’ fee; in their case, it’s £275, including Vat, for properties valued at £10,000-plus. Sellers pay a fixed catalogue entry fee — at Allsop it’s £450 for a quarter page — plus commission on completion of up to 2%. After the auction, a successful bidder has to pay a 10% deposit and exchange on the day, and usually complete within 20 working days. This tight timeframe is what often puts off all but the professional developer. Binstock believes his plan solves this.

“You can’t expect two complete strangers to part with 20 grand online,” he says. “What your potential bidders are doing really is bidding for the right to buy the property.”

Online property auctions exist on eBay, but it’s pretty ad hoc. A trawl through its residential property section reveals that most sellers are using the site as an advertising outlet for private sales. Dean Morgan, 43, from Lydley, has listed his one-bed cottage in the village of Coalway, Gloucestershire, in the Royal Forest of Dean, with a reserve of £90,000. The auction will last for six days, he has no idea whether or not any bid would be legally binding, and really views eBay as a way to attract potential viewings.

Sellers on Binstock’s site can also simply do a private sale, and of the more than 50 homes listed since the site’s launch in April, only four people have opted to try to sell at auction. The first is due to take place next Sunday, although at the time of going to press no bidders had registered.

He rejects suggestions that the site might attract frivolous bidders. Both sellers and buyers must provide proof of identity, and solicitors’ details. “By the auction, buyers will have come into contact with the sellers and the sellers’ solicitors. You aren’t buying blind.”

He hopes to make money by selling advertising space if the site eventually takes off. He is convinced it will, and clear about who it will benefit: “It’s for Mr and Mrs Smith who want to sell their lovely four-bed thatched cottage and save on estate agent fees.”

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