Signs of a ‘pre-Christmas lull’ in the housing market has been detected by the property portal Rightmove. The price of property coming to market dropped by an average of 0.6 per cent, or just over £2,000, over the last month, it has reported.

December is traditionally the quietest month for buyer activity’, it pointed out. But the ‘buying window’ will start to close with the traditional Boxing Day buyer surge.

‘Despite the soaring property market and consequent shortage of choice of homes for sale for prospective buyers, new sellers have given buyers an early Christmas present by dropping their average asking prices by 0.6 per cent’, said, Rightmove’s director of property data Tim Bannister.

‘Sellers who come to market this close to the distractions of Christmas often have a pressing reason to sell, so naturally price more attractively to grab the attention of prospective buyers who may be otherwise occupied. We expect this downward price trend to be relatively short-lived, though sellers who are in a hurry will continue to need to attract buyers for most of December as well.

‘As soon as Christmas Day is out of the way, there’s a boom in people searching for property on Boxing Day, perhaps with time available during the holiday season and a resolve to enjoy their next Christmas in new surroundings. That is likely to push prices higher again, and increase the competition from other buyers. Some of those additional buyers will also be new sellers who have held back from launching their property to market until this Boxing Day buyer boom, judging it to be a good time to sell and to move in 2022’.