Good week for

Love at first sight

When viewing a prospective home, 67% of Britons say they knew instantly when they’d found the one, finds a Savills survey of more than 3,000 people Patience

Despite the expected ‘spring surge’, the effect of Covid on the property market is going to ‘linger for longer’, says Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank. Demand is ‘consistently strong’, but as to supply, ‘there was only a modest increase in the first six weeks of this year’

The power of television

Cathedral cities such as Bath (above), Winchester, Exeter and Canterbury are attracting buyers from within the UK and as far afield as South-east Asia, thanks to the global success of Netflix’s Bridgerton. With hybrid working the way forward, ‘we are now seeing demand 20% higher for properties in these cathedral cities than the country at large,’ says Dominic Agace, chief executive at Winkworth

Borrowing money

The number of mortgages approved climbed by 4% in January, compared with December, as did the value of those loans compared with January 2021—‘the highest average mortgage advance figure to date’, according to Lawrence Bowles, director of research at Savills