So the General Election campaign has finished and it looks like Brexit will be delivered, even though the percentage vote in favour of Brexit was almost a complete reversal of the referendum outcome percentages in 2016!

So the certainty is that people will stop bothering about all that toing and froing in Parliament. The days of knife-edge votes and huge numbers of amendments are over.

All parties promised vast numbers of new homes during the campaign but one thing we know for sure is that nothing is going to be built in any quantity any time soon in this part of Hampshire. The Natural England moratorium on new homes which has stifled the granting of planning permission for developments wasn’t in any party’s manifesto. Neither was there anything about stopping the use of the nitrate fertilisers on farmland that leeches into the watercourses and is causing the pollution in the Solent that has led to the ban.

There’s likely to be a resurgence of confidence among home buyers as they get on with their lives. But their choice of new properties will remain limited as plans to move house come back into existence. Those who dream of home ownership will have to find an existing rung on the ladder because new ones are in short supply, which means a firming of prices.

What we don’t want to see as people become more economically confident is a huge surge in house prices because rampant price inflation has been shown over several recent cycles to do nothing of value because of the boom and bust cycles we endure if it happens. The market always readjusts in these circumstances which are therefore best avoided.

Fresh stock should come to the homes market in time for the traditional Spring Surge. It will refresh existing stock and with more buyers entering the market homes that have been on offer for some time should find favour among the new raft of buyers.

It will be interesting to see over Christmas, traditionally a time when bored fingers probe the internet property portals in search of a new home, whether activity is even greater this year. Here’s hoping for a Happy New Year!<