Properties coming to market up 22% year-on-year

Seven out of 10 are ‘discretionary movers’, outnumbering those forced to sell because of death, debt and divorce

Sellers entering the property market this month raised their average asking prices by 0.2 per cent (£440), according to new statistics from Rightmove. New seller prices are also up by 2.4 per cent (£5,369) year-on-year.

":Sensible pricing will help buyer affordability," said Miles Shipside, director and housing market analyst at Rightmove, "one of the factors needed to help warm up the market and encourage a recovery from the credit-crunch freeze in transaction volumes."

The weekly run-rate of new property listings is 11,153 this month, up 22 per cent on the 9,108 recorded over the same period a year ago. Though still down 37 per cent on five years ago, this is the highest level recorded at the beginning of a new year since 2008.

In London, new seller asking prices were up 3.6 cent (£16,492), the largest new year increase since 2008 and there was a 29 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of properties coming onto the market.

London's best performers in January 2013 in terms of price rises were Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Southwark, Harrow and Hillingdon. The bottom five were Islington, Camden, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston-upon-Thames and Tower Hamlets.