Cast your mind back to 13 August this year (it was a Tuesday). Were you looking at properties online? If so you weren't alone, because according the website Rightmove it was their busiest day of the year so far with 36m page views. If other trends on the site are anything to go by, the biggest spike in traffic will have been between 12pm and 1pm. Tuesday lunchtimes are apparently Rightmove's busiest time.
Why? According to spokesman Matthew James: "One of the factors for the peak on Tuesdays is because it is an opportune time for people to look for properties early on in the week to then plan in viewings for the weekend."
August isn't usually a busy period in the housing market. People are on holiday, so lending and house prices genrally dip. This year has been different, however, with confidence boosted by schemes like Help to Buy and a pick-up in the economy, pushing mortgage lending to its highest level since 2008.
"You could describe 2013 as a year of two halves as the market really picked up momentum in the summer," says James. "All five of the busiest days on Rightmove were in August as confidence returned and people took advantage of the holidays to plan a move for the second half of the year."
Another contributing factor could have been people taking advantage of a summer lull at work and logging in just to have a nose at the asking price for their neighbour's house. As I discovered when I confessed my own property-website obsession, not everyone who visits the site is actually looking to buy. (For anyone feeling despondent, be strong: I can report it is possible to cut down your visits to just two a week if you really want to. The key is to reduce your search parameter and the maximum price.)
The list of most-viewed properties underlines that people are not always on these sites to hunt for homes, unless Rightmove users are mainly oligarchs with distinctive tastes. The hit of the year was the "purple house" which went up on the site in November. Its violent violet decor was viewed 3m times, although it's not clear if anyone has actually bought it. The other most-viewed homes include a £65m pad on millionaire's row in Hampstead and a slightly unusual new-build home near Newcastle.
In 2012, searches didn't stop over the Christmas period. More than 3 million people logged on to look at property between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. With 2014 expected to see further increases in homebuying, it's likely even more people will log on this year and swap the Queen's speech for estate agents' patter.
