David Jones, director of Allan Morris Estate Agents, sees the market hitting the ground running in 2015 and looks forward to an active property market throughout the year ahead – despite one rather important event in May.

In terms of the housing market 2015 could prove be a somewhat unusual year. In many ways the market is looking healthier than it has for years with more first time buyers than at any time since 2007. Early signs in January are of sustained activity. These factors are clearly a reflection of increased confidence in the economy and higher employment across the UK.

This is very good news. The only cloud on the horizon might be the general election in May. Usually the run up to an election involves lots of publicity from the major political parties, cheerfully explaining how life will be so much sweeter if we vote for them, compared to the nightmare scenario awaiting us if any of the other parties come to power.

Understandably this all creates a degree of uncertainty amongst the public, which in previous election years has meant the property market experiencing a slight cooling of activity levels in the weeks before an election. This is understandable as people want to wait and see how their lives might be changing - for better or worse - dependent on which party wins the election.

However this year, with the current coalition government offering neither one thing or another and the national economy still walking a tightrope despite the various promising signs of recovery, there has surely never been a general election quite like this one where so little is likely to change, regardless of which party comes to power.

For this reason I don’t expect the market to be unduly affected this year by ‘election-fever’. On the contrary, with the chancellor’s stamp duty giveaway prior to Christmas bringing good news to just about everybody, I fully expect the Spring property market to continue in the same busy fashion that we saw throughout the whole of 2014.

Whilst the volatile London market seems to have finally burnt itself out and there is now evidence of prices actually falling in the capital, we in Worcestershire are continuing to enjoy the benefits of a far more settled property market. House prices locally have rallied a little over the last year or two, but the combined effects of minimal wage inflation, stretched household budgets and tighter mortgage lending criteria means that there is little scope for prices here to continue rising in the short term.

This is probably a good thing. Very few people would consider property to be priced cheaply at present. For most would-be buyers, house prices remain just about affordable, and this is only thanks in part to the extremely low interest rates that we have had for some time and which do look like being around for some time to come.

We currently have a very healthy property market and I look forward to it remaining in good health. Activity levels across my network of local offices are excellent and the evidence suggests that as long as property prices remain correctly matched to the market, 2015 looks like being a very busy year for buyers and sellers - and indeed for estate agents!