If the housing market is going to face more snakes than ladders in 2025, no one seems to have told it: February transaction data showed that values had risen for the sixth month in a row.

According to high-street lender Nationwide, the UK's biggest mortgage firm, activity in the shortest winter month was boosted by a rush among first time buyers (FTBs) to beat the Chancellor's April 1 deadline, after which stamp duty will rise.

FTBs signing for a home up to £400,000 are exempt from paying stamp duty until March 31, but the next day they will need to cough up £5,000 in the transaction.

That energy in the lower end of the market appears to be nudging values up across the board: Nationwide data showed that the average price of a home in the UK increased by 0.4% in February to £270,493 and the last rise was bigger than the 0.2% increase forecast by economists. In fact, prices are at their highest since Liz Truss's mini-budget in 2022 and now are a mere 0.6% (£1,800), off the record high achieved in the summer of 2024.

In terms of how that background translates into front-line reality in Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds, independent estate agents Milburys, which covers the south of the county, says that November and December were already very busy but the rising barometer of as we reach early March was better still.

Leyla Wood, Valuer, said: "First time buyers seemed to have been hiding under a rock but they are now back and in droves. We have certainly wintnessed a sense of urgency ahead of the stamp duty change and the refrain is 'can this be completed by April 1?' which is usually very optimistic given the fact that freehold searches can be something like 400 questions when they might have been just 40 in the past."

That energy is moving upwards in the market as well, she said, with second and third-time buyers no longer being "rabbits in the headlamps" in terms of the higher level of mortgage repayments they now face.

"There has been a sense of acceptance of higher payments. In terms of what would sell as the dream prospect for us now, given how the Cotswolds is dotted with beautiful hamlets, the hottest property is in the sub £500,000 bracket, which is very busy, while there is good demand also for £500,000 to £800,000 four-bed detached luxury homes. Even in the £1m-plus area, where 18 months ago things were sluggish, we see more people in the pool."

But Ms Wood added that the most striking phenomenon in terms of what is driving the market so far in 2025 was perhaps the least-used of the three infamous Ds: divorce.

"Separation as a trend seems to be going through the roof. For every 10 homes we are taking on, it can be six which are subject to a split between the owners. And typically that caan mean that a home at around £600,000 is seeing TWO buyers emerge from that part of the chain – in turn, that is driving new energy back into the lower end of the property market.

As to the reasons for this trend, Milbury's believes it may come down to agency - in its behavioural sense. Ms Wood, explained: "We see many women who have professional careers and they are more than capable of making independent property decisions. The evidence of women in full-time jobs who now have that freedom is showing in our daily experience."

Whether we can call that a cost of loathing crisis is down to interpretation: last year, Savills reported that new home enquiries to its desks had "soared" in the wake of the Pandemic, so much so that it issued a guideline document on selling a home amid a breakup. Given that estate agents are an early point of contact for property valuation when an ex-couple decides to sell and split the proceeds, their sector appears to be an emerging authority on the social trend.

Covid has waned since 2021, but the trend does not appear to be fading, with many commentators suggesting that a pent-up desire for separation in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic is only now coming to the fore.