Rightmove has revealed in its annual round-up that in 2015, the busiest month was in fact March, proving that the New Year rush persisted a little longer than normal.

Its busiest single day was 10 August, a time when house-hunters browsed over 58.6 million pages of property, a common time of year for those looking to be settled well before Christmas.

In terms of locations, Bristol and Cambridge came first and second as the most-searched locations by potential buyers and sellers outside of the capital in 2015. The commuter towns of Milton Keynes and Reading also made the top 10 for both buying and renting.

The seaside town of Margate, in Kent witnessed the highest house price growth across 2015, increasing by 24% to £205,000, followed by Altricham in Cheshire; increasing by 22% to an average of £484,000.

As reported in Rightmove’s Rental Trends Tracker in October, the East of England was revealed as a top location for prospective buy to let investors, and it has now been revealed that this area is also where properties sell the fastest, with an annual increase of 9.2% in house prices in the area. 

Rightmove’s housing expert Sam Mitchell commented on the 2015 property market: “The ripple effect from London to the South East moved even further out to place like Essex and Hertfordshire, as you can see from how quick properties are selling in these locations.”