There has been an ‘unprecedented rebound’ in house sales, the property website Zoopla has reported.

The coronavirus closed down the housing market. But four weeks on from its reopening there is a bounce back in demand which has translated into new sales agreed at levels close to those of early March, said Zoopla.

‘Demand for housing is now 54 per cent higher than at the start of March, as pent-up demand returns to the property market’, said Zoopla.

‘New sales agreed have rebounded and are just 12 per cent short of the levels seen in early March as buyers return to the market and agree to new purchases. We have seen the number of new sales agreed rise by 137 per cent since the market reopened’.

The higher the price band, the greater the increase in the volume of sales agreed, said the firm. But sales are higher across all price bands nationally.

‘The rebound in housing demand over the last month is not solely explained by a return of pent-up demand’, according to Zoopla director of research and insight Richard Donnell. ‘COVID has brought a whole new group of would-be buyers into the housing market.  

‘We still believe that this spike in demand will be short-lived as the economic impacts

• Halifax last week reported that it believed May house prices to be down 0.2 per cent on April, but still 2.6 per cent higher than in the same month last year.. In the March to May quarter, prices were 0.5 per cent lower than the previous three months. ’Looking ahead, we expect market activity to increase progressively as restrictions are eased’, said Halifax managing director Russell Galley.