Estate agents across Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds are used to a pleasant warm front in April, but the latest stats from the UK's biggest online sales platform suggest this month heralds particularly prime conditions for people making a move.

With the average asking price hitting a new record of just over £377,000, recorded new homebuyer demand in March went up 5% on this time last year, says Rightmove, while new sellers popped up in the listings to the tune of a 4% rise.

Seasoned by an expectation of the Bank of England dropping its base rate in May and, despite the temporary stamp duty holiday finishing at the start of this month, Rightmove reckons the climate is hightly encouraging for the summer ahead.

Its reading of data on asking prices showed how March saw the average price of a property coming to market rise by 1.4% - up £5,312 - setting a new record of £377,182.

Colleen Babcock, Head of Partner Marketing at Rightmove, said: "We've seen our first price record in nearly a year, despite the number of homes for sale being at a decade-high. The increased choice seems to be bringing more home-movers into the market, with both buyer demand and seller numbers up."

With more homes available for sale than at this time of year, she added that competition had increased: "The high number of homes available in the market right now means buyers are likely to have plenty in their area to choose from, and an overpriced home will stick out for the wrong reasons. Our research also shows that getting the price right the first time is key. Homes that don't need a reduction in price are more likely to find a buyer, and to find that buyer in less than half the time."

Essentially, Rightmove believes that April 1's stamp duty increases haven't stalled home-movers.

The change on any property which completed after March 31 broke down in this way: for homes up to £250,000, you paid nothing, from £250,001 to £925,000 you paid 5% and from £925,000 to £1.5m you paid 10% while a levy of 12% was imposed on anything above that price.

For buyers, the value at which stamp duty is now not imposed has dropped to £125,000, with a tapering system that means any transaction in the £125,001 to £250,000 incurs a 2% tax, while all brackets thereafter remain as above.

For first-time buyers, the rules before the change dictated that they paid no stamp duty at all on a transaction below £425,000, bit this threshold has now dropped to £300,000, with the first rung on the property ladder costing them 5% on any purchase between £300,001 and £500,000.

Rightmove's report said: "Since the April stamp duty changes, we haven't seen an increase in the number of home sales falling through, which indicates there hasn't been any major backtracking from first-time buyers and movers who were unable to complete before the tax rise."

There was also, the report added, a late rush to complete sales from those who did have their sales agreed in time to beat the stamp duty deadline. And despite the notorious purgatory for buyers and sellers seeking to finalise the deal, Rightmove said the queue of buyers waiting to complete their home purchases actually shrunk in March by 24,000, or 4%, which was "the first time this backlog dropped during the month of March since the pandemic in 2020." The vendor platform added, however, that the queue had begun to subsequently side again.

Gloucestershire's breadth and diversity of property makes the county a prime case study for the health of the nation's market. In the city and environs, Rightmove lists 2,175 properties for sale as of today, including land and as-yet-unbuilt off-plan propositions. Typically, vendors Taylors Estate Agents offer this one-bedroom flat in Trier Way for £80,000 with a ground rent of £200pa.

At the other end of the scale, Butler Sherborn's business focuses on the Cotwolds. 

Helen Whitfield, Partner at the agency which "lives and breathes" the area, said that while today's figures were reflective of positive news in the sector, they belie a detail of one pitfall when marketing higher-end real estate.

She said: "Rightmove's figures are irrelevant to the extent that, since the Pandemic, both the cost of building projects and the scarcity of builders available to carry out projects means that selling a property which needs work is really tough."

In contrast to previous conditions where buyers fought over doer-uppers for their pent-up potential, she said that the typical buyer now seeks a turnkey proposition: "If the house is all-singing, all-dancing, we can see competition and an offer within a week. The alternative is a million surveys, and a process which can stretch from month to month with buyers growing far more cautious about the potential value of their final investment set against the cost of getting there."

And while divorce continues to be a significant factor in the market, as reported by Punchline-Gloucester.com in March, Helen said it was not the prime defining element of activity: "What matters above all now is a seller's price sensitivity. If it's on at a sensible figure, it will sell because the interest generated will ensure that you get competition and, finally, a good price."