Our first auction in July 2008 had 19 lots to sell. Fast-forward to today and this month's auction has 52 lots.

In the past 10 years we’ve offered 2,645 properties for sale at auction and sold 2,119, an 80% success rate and a total value of £170.1m.

Ten years ago I was a co-director of Tiffen & Co Estate Agents, with John Forsyth, when we decided to take on the Auction House franchise for Cumbria.

We saw that the majority of properties then being auctioned were going to London or regional auction rooms and it was very apparent that they were selling for not a lot of money.

Some agents, mainly in the south of the county, were doing auctions, but not in large volumes. We were the first to fill the space and it has grown and expanded beyond all expectations.

We were using Tiffen’s branch staff to run the auction side but soon realised that other estate agents in the county wanted a platform to which they could refer relevant properties.

So we changed the name and separated the company to become Auction House Cumbria, and now 40% of our catalogue is made up of referrals from estate agents, commercial agents, letting agents, solicitors and asset management companies.

In the early years it was more about educating the public about auctions than competing in the marketplace, demonstrating that the auction process was a different but as effective method of sale to the open market private treaty sale.

The golden rule is you can’t put a property into auction at an open market asking price. You have to have the courage and conviction to put it in at an auction guide price that then generates competitive bidding.

If the highest bid in the room is over the reserve price – which is a confidential figure between the vendor and the auctioneer - that is the property’s true value.

After the reserve price is reached, and when bidding is exhausted, I am authorised to drop the gavel, which represents a legal and binding exchange of contracts because we’ve provided a legal pack throughout the process, including Land Registry information and searches, contracts and any special conditions.

The buyer pays a non-refundable 10% deposit and the completion is normally 28 days. The vendor is as legally bound to sell as the buyer is legally bound to buy. Transparency is the key.

It takes seven or eight weeks from listing to completion which is attractive to a lot of people. Normally we would list the property, have three to four weeks marketing and making viewings available while putting together the legal pack for all to see, resulting in the auction and then four weeks’ completion.

A big fear and main obstacle for vendors is the concern about their property not selling for enough money at auction. However, competitive bidding often results in a sale price in excess of what they would achieve in the open market - you can’t underestimate the competitive nature of an auction room.

The auction process suits a certain type of vendor and a certain type of property. It suits the vendor whose priority is to get the certainty of sale and security of contract that is formed on the fall of the gavel, avoiding the frailties associated with some private treaty sales where buyers and sellers can pull out without penalty.

It suits the type of property that is in demand by investors who will buy to let out, and builders or developers who will buy to renovate, extend, knock down and rebuild and sell on.

We have seven auctions a year at Carlisle Racecourse and another seven at Coronation Hall, Ulverston. There is a lot entry fee and there’s a sales commission. If a property fails to reach the reserve price, we will enter it into another auction, or look at other ways of selling.

When we started out it was all properties of mid to lower-end value but in recent years we’ve expanded the operation into the Lake District and now the highest sale we’ve had is £925,000.

These days we’re seeing a growing number of people after holiday homes or second homes and the Bank of Mum and Dad getting the kids on the ladder.

The next 10 years? We started this when the financial crisis hit in 2008 and we expected the numbers to decrease as the private treaty market recovered but in fact it has increased.

Because of that, I would expect numbers of properties going to auction, with the right vendor and the right property, to remain strong and increase because it not only involves residential, we sell a lot of commercial, semi-commercial, mixed use and land.