The average number of house hunters registered per estate agent branch increased to 282 in December from 263 in November.
The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) housing market report for December showed that despite the increase house hunters the number of first time buyers fell from 22% to 21%.
The number of properties available per branch also fell from 60 to 58 and the number of sales decreased from 7 to 5 per branch.