Is there another boom coming already? Haart's latest survey of its 55 London branches finds that the London residential property market is seeing surprisingly strong growth with the average sold price increasing by 22% since the beginning of the year compared with October.

The statistics revealed the average sold price for a property in London grew from £152,207 in January 2009 to £194,052 by October. Russell Jervis (pictured right), Managing Director of haart, said: "The number of properties being sold remaining steady over the last few months but the prices we are selling them for has grown considerably. Sellers are starting to get a decent return on investment as property prices begin to rise."

Meanwhile Hometrack says the national picture is not quite so exciting.

Their latest survey says that house prices grew by 0.2% in October 2009, the third consecutive increase in house prices which brings the year on year rate of house price growth to -4.2%.

Richard Donnell, Hometrack's Director of Research said, "The last six months has seen a continued improvement in housing market sentiment on the back of rising demand and a lack of housing for sale.

"Prices have firmed and the discount between sales and asking prices is back to the same level it was at the start of the credit crunch over two years ago. However, what is becoming increasingly clear from recent Hometrack surveys is a marked slowdown in the rate of growth in the volume of new buyers registering with agents. This suggests that the pent up demand that has boosted the market in recent months is starting to fade in the face of firmer pricing and fewer clear bargains."

The RICS reports that houses prices are indeed rising, in spite of an increase in the number of new instructions received. Their surveyors are asked to: "Indicate by how much average house prices have changed over the last three months - falling, the same or rising?". The answers resulted in a net balance of 34, up 20 per cent over September and in London the balance was 95 per cent reporting an increase - the highest level since December 2006.