The desire for more personal space has led to houses selling faster than flats with a three-bedroom house selling in 24 days, compared to a three-bedroom flat which on average took 31 days to come off the market. 

Buyer demand is “unseasonably strong” Zoopla said, with data showing that appetite for the year rose 34% compared to the first eight months of 2019.

The number of new sales agreed on the portal is also 76% ahead of its five-year average. 

Sellers are responding to the demand as the number of homes coming on to the market is up 50% on July last year. 

As for house prices, they are expected to remain fairly flat as Zoopla predicted a two or three per cent growth on prices compared to the start of the year. 

In July, annual house price growth slowed to 2.5% from 2.7% in June. Month-on-month, this was an increase of 0.6%.

Richard Donnell, research and insight director at Zoopla, said: “The once-in-a-lifetime re-evaluation of housing requirements on the back of the lockdown will be a counterweight to the impact of the recession on housing market activity over the rest of 2020.  

“While demand has softened over August, we expect the current momentum in market activity to continue into the last three months of the year.”