The term ‘green shoots’ has become toxic to politicians rash enough to use it and we hesitate to employ it here in the context of the housing market. But embattled conveyancers, still reeling from last year’s ‘annus horribilis’ and the continuation of the malaise into 2009, do at last have some cause for optimism. Home loans are up by a quarter and surveyors expect property prices to rise over the year as demand increases. Low interest rates and more realistic selling prices have generated an increase in transactions.

It would be unwise to get too excited, however; we are a long way from what could be described as ‘normal’ levels of activity. Transactions are running at about half the monthly average of the last seven years.

That said, after the unalloyed gloom of the last 18 months, any data upon which a positive interpretation can be placed must be welcome.

Solicitor conveyancers can take heart too from a new survey commissioned by the SRA on public attitudes to their services. Satisfaction rates are described by the independent pollster ComRes as ‘stratospherically high’ – 93% of those polled were ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ satisfied with the experience.

Chancery Lane will surely be able to leverage that encouraging finding in its own efforts to promote the solicitors’ profession as competition intensifies.