According to the latest Rightmove house price index, prices rose 0.9% month-on-month, swinging from a 2.1% decline in December.

It was the biggest January rise since 2020, while year-on-year, house prices jumped 6.3%.

The average asking price now stood at £362,438, although that was still £8,720 below its October 2022 peak.

Rightmove said the number of prospective buyers contacting agents in January rose 4% when compared to the same period in 2019, and by 55% when compared to the two weeks before Christmas.

However, buyer demand was down by 36% on January last year, indicating that the market was returning to “more normal” levels of activity.

Tim Bannister, director of property science at Rightmove, said house buyers would be reassured by calmer market conditions following the “rapidly changing and at times chaotic economic climate of the final few months of last year”.

“We expect that the full effect of affordability constraints and last year’s mortgage rate rises will hold back some segments of the market in the first half of the year, but our leading market indicators may start to identify some green shoots of growth that will go onto strength in the second half of 2023,” he added.