A recent survey, undertaken by Rightmove, the online real estate agent, has revealed that over 50% people now expect prices of residential properties to rise over the ongoing year, compared to a mere 10% who were expecting the same for 2009.

A total of 53% participants in the survey said that they are expecting house prices to rise over 2010.

Only about 13% respondents felt that house prices would decline, which is a substantial improvement on the 69% that felt so about 12 months back.

"The property market is in a virtuous circle scenario, where consumers are seeing less property up for sale and fresh to the market property selling more quickly. That rightly gives them the impression that we are over the worst of the recent price falls, and that there is likely to be upward pressure on prices", said Miles Shipside, Commercial Director of Rightmove.

Overall, people are expecting only slight rises in prices, with 47% forecasting that the residential property costs would surge by less than 10%, and only m7% estimating that there would be double-digit rises.