that's the view of spring expressed by an agent referring to what has been, since the late l990s, the busiest season in the residential market.

The spring market is generally well underway by early February, but there is a perception that there are fewer houses, particularly second hand, so far this year. Simon Ensor, auctions director and chairman of Sherry FitzGerald, says it has more new instructions coming on than in previous years, but that the buoyant end to 2005 has had an impact in some quarters.

"The end of last year was phenomenally strong and, in some of our offices it resulted in opening up in the new year with a just a handful, perhaps only five or six, properties.

Anything that came on early January was gone by the end."

Figures released last week by the Irish Homebuilders Association (IHBA) suggest Ireland now has the greatest housing demand in Europe.

Housing completions in 2005 were in the region of 81,000, making it the 13th consecutive year of increasing housing output, according to the IHBA director Hubert Fitzpatrick.

"Since 2001, housing output has increased by 50%. This is unprecedented in Europe and across the world. Driving demand is the fact that the household formation ratio in Ireland of 2.94 persons per household is heading towards the EU average of 2.6 persons.

Plus, there are 160,000 extra people working in this country compared to two years ago."

House price inflation estimates this year range from 8% to 15%. "Certainly, last year's rise surprised everyone, " says Simon Ensor. "We were criticised in some editorials for predicting a 10% price growth at the start of 2005, but, as it transpired, the figure was much higher. Certainly in the Dublin market, it was 20% in certain areas while, at the upper end, it was well in excess 20%. There is an insatiable appetite out there in the new homes market, particularly for one and 2-bed apartments in good areas."