With the Munster match leading to record low viewings and another bank holiday coming up next week, the nerves of some home owners are rather frayed.

But the auction hiccup is, say agents, more a result of the massive number of homes that were put up for auction immediately after the Easter break and has nothing to do with a faltering in demand.

"Before Easter, we were auctioning about six to a dozen properties a week, " says Simon Ensor, director of auctions at the Sherry FitzGerald group. "Last week we auctioned 24 and the week before we held 18 auctions. At the moment, if you just look at Dublin's best roads, there are four houses for sale on Waterloo Road alone. You could go from one year to the next without any going on the market.

There are four houses on the Merrion Road and three or four on Palmerston Road in Dublin 6."

On the next page, we feature three houses on St Alban's Road in Dublin 8.

"This has to have an effect.

People don't come into the auction room unless they have to and, as there is a multiplicity of choice out there for them, it can be more difficult for them to focus on one property."

Ensor says that for an auction to be truly successful and get the welcome big bonus, about four serious bidders are needed in the auction room. If only two people are interested and one is not overly strong, it can mean an auction has to be withdrawn. In February or March we were regularly seeing four or five people bidding at each auction, now it is two or three."

Agents say that the vast majority of properties withdrawn at auction will sell afterwards . . . if sellers keep prices realistic.

"The private treaty market is very strong and demand still high, " says Ensor. "I am absolutely confident that by the end of July the vast majority of properties on the market now will be sold."

However, Ensor cautions that sellers must not get carried away by the surge in prices that occured in the first quarter of the year.

"Most vendors whose properties are withdrawn will achieve a price that reflects their expectation on the day of the auction . . . which will be around the AMV they have set. They are unlikely to get the sort of bonus that can happen at a strong auction.

"But if vendors have set their minimum aspiration at an unduly optimistic level, they may have to reconsider their price."

In other words, there's so much on the market at the moment, you can't afford to be greedy.