The wisdom for sellers used to be that when the clocks changed at the end of October, you should take your house off the market till the following spring.

More recently sellers have adopted the Lottery approach of “you have to be in it to win it”, keeping their houses live until December and only then taking a break till the new year.

But Savills stats show that the comatose level of web activity in December now defribillates back to life during the Christmas period.

One reason is that Christmas is one of the few times of the year when families come together and make big decisions – and there are few bigger than selling the family home.

But I think there's another factor at play here. The appearance of smartphones and tablets at the top of so many Christmas lists means that everyone has access to the internet. What better way to escape the chaos of Christmas than to surf for a new home?

Last Christmas we saw a marked rise in the number of enquiries over the Christmas period and many of these were requests to view.

So rather than rest your property over Christmas, perhaps you should be relaunching on Christmas Eve.

Further information

Contact your local Savills office for more information.