Private treaty was the way to go for our house, because it's in an estate. Estate houses in Lucan aren't usually auctioned.

It was a foregone conclusion among agents that we'd sell by private treaty.

I was working from home and had a lot of expensive equipment. A private treaty sale meant I was able to keep the house intact, because there were only two or three people coming at one time.

Agents are very good at weeding out genuine potential buyers from nosy neighbours or sightseers. Viewers were asked a lot of questions before they were able to make an appointment. Even though it was before Christmas, we had about 50 to 60 viewers over three weeks.

The drawback is that the agent can ring any day and tell you the viewers have to see it right away. When you pick up the kids from school you end up buying them dinner in McDonald's. You're not cooking decent meals and you're not doing the washing either. The beauty is that viewers are not under time pressure and they can wander around the house at their leisure after work.

Three or four couples came every evening to see the house, 80 per cent from within a three-mile radius. Most were older families wanting to trade up from smaller semis in the Lucan area. The secret of selling by private treaty is looking for someone not in the chain. We weeded them all out - anybody who had to sell their house to buy ours wasn't a sound proposal.

Some agents recommended a price guide of £250,000 and Gunne's said £275,000 so we went with them. There was a first bid of £250,000, then someone came up with £275,000 and it started to go up.

In the end, there were two people bidding against each other. So we decided the first person to get to £300,000 would get the house.

More and more, agents are speeding up private treaty sales. If the people are really interested in buying, they'll want to bid there and then.