A national valuations firm is predicting that there were the highest number of house purchase approvals in 18 months during June.

LSL firm e.surv is forecasting 72,712 approvals for house purchase, up 12.8% from May and the highest number since January 2014.

If the forecast is correct – and e.surv has a good track record in this respect – then last month’s figure will also be 10.5% up on last June.

Richard Sexton, director of e.surv, said: “This is the summer comeback we’ve been waiting for.”

Earlier this week, another national valuations firm also reported that the market had burst back into life. Connells Survey & Valuation said it had had a particularly busy June in terms of valuation activity.