THERE was a time when I prided myself on being able to guess (within a percentage point or two) the auction results of most Dublin residential property. Each week I’d view a selection of houses on the market, take note of my “guesstimates” and check the auction results three weeks later (obviously I’m easily entertained).

Sometimes, of course, I got it wrong – invariably because I’d underestimated the price people were prepared to pay for the right type of house in the right type of area. As the boom reached its climax, my guesstimates became increasingly short of the mark as, virtually overnight, relatively unremarkable properties achieved “trophy home” status and sold for prices far in excess of their guides.

I was always curious about a couple of aspects of these multi-million euro auctions.

Firstly, even during those heady days, we only ever had a few handfuls of high-wealth individuals in this country. It struck me as fortunate that on each occasion, at least two of them were simultaneously searching for the home of their dreams and were prepared to engage in an all-out bidding war in order to secure it.

Secondly, presuming the intending purchasers didn’t have tens of millions languishing in their deposit accounts, their banks would have had to sanction a maximum purchase figure in advance of the auction.

The former has been the subject of much speculation over the years but, as few would ever admit to ‘puffing’, we are unlikely to know to what extent the practice actually existed.

The latter however, was rarely if ever mentioned, although it would have been unlikely that a purchaser would have participated in an auction without first establishing his maximum budget. Thus, solicitors, accountants and bankers would have to know, in advance of an auction, the highest figure their client could bid on a property.

Solicitors and accountants would have been bound by rules on client confidentiality. Also, it would have been very unlikely that they would have had access to personal information relating to the competition.

But banks, as we now know, were not bound by any such rules and have access to details of everyone’s finances. Insider information of this sort can be very valuable in the right, or perhaps more accurately, the wrong, hands.

And, in this little country, where everyone knows everyone within certain circles, it doesn’t take too long for the word to spread like wildfire.

Banks also invested heavily in the property business themselves, acting in effect as financial backers/business partners to many of the top property developers.

My suspicious mind now questions the banks’ investment in the property business. Was it a conflict of interest? Were they benefiting from insider information? Were all of their property dealings entirely legal?

Equally, I wonder how much banks are benefiting from the situation in which we now find ourselves. Lending institutions are, ironically, in a more powerful position than ever before: they are holding the entire nation to ransom by forcing us to refinance them while simultaneously pressurising borrowers to pay everything back.

While their advertising (paid by us) might lead one to believe that they are competing with each other for business, they no longer want anything to do with the lending of money. Their main objective these days is the short-sighted goal of dragging every last cent out of the economy in order to refinance their institutions.

At the first sign of trouble, banks shifted their staff around to ensure they no longer had any contact with customers with whom they might have established a “friendly” relationship during the boom.

Overnight, uncompromising zombies have replaced the smiling familiar faces customers were accustomed to meeting. One disillusioned bank employee complained, “we are now expected to be able to draw blood from a stone . . . where we were once paid to lend, our jobs are on the line now if we can’t recoup every euro”.

As customers have no chance of taking their business elsewhere, they are caught in a vicious circle, with banks forcing them to sell property but not lending anyone any money to buy same. Individually and collectively, we are at the mercy of our lending institutions.

How convenient would it be now for banks to force highly stressed borrowers to sell their well-performing assets and well-located trophy homes for little or nothing? Leopards don’t change their spots. The chances are that bankers are now in cahoots with the new breed of vultures, which have, for some time now, been circling and waiting to swoop.

Or perhaps, these are nothing more than the vagaries of my suspicious mind.

• Isabel Morton is a property consultant