Phoebus Software sales and marketing director Richard Pike says: “The latest figures from HMRC are unsurprisingly stark, painting a picture that shows just how much the housing market was hit by the Covid-19 outbreak restrictions.

“However, now that the market is once again ‘open for business’, even in a small way, it is likely that these figures will start to creep up in the coming months.

“We have already seen that remortgage activity remained steady during lockdown, as borrowers looked ahead to try to save money, and some of the transactions that were put on hold are likely to be moving forward now.

“Unfortunately, we do have the spectre of recession that cannot be ignored.  “Any enthusiasm we have that things are getting back to normal will also be tempered with the inevitable caution, which has become a pattern for our market in recent years.”