Property: It's time to move on, and it shows

No wonder people are reluctant to move if they fear there is nothing around they would want to buy. The latest survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, showing the number of homes for sale at its lowest level for 15 years only confirms their worst fears. But events are overtaking these statistics.

Harvey Williams, a national housing market spokesman for RICS, makes the point that while job insecurity and interest rate rises don't help, many people outside London and the South-east are crucially still waiting for their homes to increase in value.

Certainly where agents have seen an increase in supply it is a large factor, as is the apparent stability in the market. Browns in Guildford and Cranleigh for instance has more in the pounds 250,000 to pounds 500,000 for sale than for some time because sellers believe their homes to have reached a certain peak.

Still on the good news front, Black Horse agencies finds the number of instructions this month is as much as 33 per cent higher than a year ago and suggest that the first-time buyers of a few years ago are finding the confidence to move on.

In the country market, many agents are expecting properties they priced at the end of last year to start coming on to the market. In London, Tom Marshall of Cluttons is far from gloomy. "The last 10 days has seen a big improvement in supply. This is a normal January. At the top end of the market people are more interested in skiing than moving, while lower down now that the heat has gone out of the market, many more people will be tempted to move."

The revamping of old barns seems a good way around the controversy surrounding building in the countryside. Fashionable again, they combine the current vogue for large, airy spaces within an old structure. And since the quality of the conversions bears no resemblance to the horrors of 10 and 15 years ago, they sell well.

Knight Frank has Twentyways Farm, a former farm building in Ramsdean, Hampshire on its books at present. It has three bedroom and three bathroom with an adjoining cottage in more than 17 acres. Offers in excess of pounds 650,000. (01483 565 171).

And within the Thorney Park golf course in Iver Heath, Bucks, Bewley Homes has restored three barns - one is listed - around three sides of a paved courtyard. On the fourth side it has built 18 one- and two-bedroom homes ranging in price from pounds 75,000 to pounds 175,000. There is an open weekend there this Saturday and Sunday (01256 850074).

The Housebuyer Show at the Sandown Exhibition Centre, Esher, Surrey runs from 13 to 15 February and is aimed at buyers and sellers in the South-east. Apart from developers and estate agent, there will advice on offer about the "buy to let" schemes, and from the independent mortgage brokers John Charcol. For information telephone 0181-876 1969.