ESTATE AGENTS' offices will be emptying out over the next fortnight as the holiday that began for many with Cheltenham continues into the early Easter break.

Many buyers are heading for ski slopes or beaches to take advantage of the long school break, and everyone expects property market activity to slow right down.

But it will be the calm before the post-Easter storm says Sherry FitzGerald's Simon Ensor. Then "a lot of fresh, quality stuff will be coming to the market in the first couple of weeks after Easter". A lot of people have held off coming to market until then - but of course there'll be nothing like the volume of recent years, he warns.

Lisney's Tom Day - quietly celebrating two good auction room sales yesterday - expects there'll be "reasonable activity" after the Easter lull. "And if people are sensible, sales will be made." (Translated, this means that vendors have to be "realistic" and accept that prices have come down by up to 20 per cent since the mid-2006 peak.)

In the new homes market, most showhouses are already closed for business until after Easter and, according to Ronan O'Driscoll of Savills HOK, many agents are using the time to "regroup" before there's a new round of launches after Easter. At Savills HOK it will be back to business on March 27th with new homes developments in Lucan and Rathdowney in Co Wicklow.

There is only a trickle of building activity at the moment with few brand new launches; most homes coming on stream are part of re-launches or new phases of developments.

"Eventually this will be reflected in supply towards the end of year, when prices should pick up slightly," says O'Driscoll. "It won't be an annus horribilis like last year," he says.

Another new homes agent who declined to be named predicted that more builders will be "jumping on the bargain band wagon" after Easter and are now reacting to massive price cuts on developments by builders like Capel Construction and Albany Homes. He believes that only developments that are keenly priced will sell. "Moderate reductions won't work, they have to be serious discounts. At this stage just offering free furniture packages is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

Paul Murgatroyd of Douglas Newman Good believes activity in the second-hand market will pick up after Easter "but it will be nothing spectacular" until the period from April to June when things will improve but prices will remain "soft and relatively level".