THE SEASONS are officially over according to the Irish Auctioneers & Valuers institute in its latest survey of activity in the property market.

It is talking about the traditional strong spring and autumn selling seasons when punters came out in force to purchase property after long holiday spells. Those were the days when the first daffodils brought out the money and leaves falling from the trees seemed to have the same effect.

No more. By all accounts, sales activity continued to be sluggish during the final three months of 2010, with sales instructions down 10 per cent in Dublin and overall sales back by 27per cent.

The time it takes to sell a house is now straddling different seasons, according to the IAVI, with the average Dublin sale now taking 18 weeks.

This sounds a little bit optimistic to us, since there are lots of properties out there that have been for sale for years rather than months, even though prices have been cut in most instances.

Estate agents say that new property coming on the market at the right price has a better chance of selling than stock that has been sitting for yonks.

On a more optimistic note, 73 per cent of respondents to the IAVI survey said they believed that the sharp cut in stamp duty would lead to the sale of more homes this year.

However, anecdotally agents are saying that this is not necessarily the case so far, particularly for more expensive homes that have benefited most from the cut from nine per cent down to one per cent.

In a normal market this would have created a rush to trade up and trade down, but the weakness of the market and the absence of mortgages is killing any prospects of this happening.