It has been just over a year since estate agency resumed after the first lockdown. All estate agency activity ceased between Boris’ lockdown announcement on the 23rd March 2020 and mid May. During this period no house viewings or valuations could take place. Mortgage surveys were cancelled and house moved that hadn’t exchanged contracts were put on ice. We were available and working from home the housing market entered effective hibernation. We tentatively reopened our operations on 18th May 2020. For the first few weeks people seemed to nervously return to the housing market and things started to snow ball through June with activity, valuation and sales increasing. July heralded the much celebrated stamp duty holiday announcement up to £500,000 initially until 31st March 2021. This saw activity surge and by the late summer/autumn the housing market was motoring along with record levels of sales as buyers clambered to take advantage of the tax break and as pent up demand from the lockdown returned. Covid cases went up through the autumn and this resulted in another lockdown through November, however, this time as with January’s lockdown the housing market remained fully open. Early in 2021 the stamp duty holiday up to £500,000 was extended until 30th June 2021 and to £250,000 until 30th September 2021 and this again caused a spike in demand and activity through March and April! As we continue to move through 2021 and as the world slowly starts to move back to normality we expect demand for housing in Norfolk & North Suffolk to stay strong driven by low interest rates, high demand and people leaving the south east as working patterns change.