For many, I suspect the festive urge to scroll through pictures of other people’s houses is brought on by a confrontation with the inescapable truth. We look around the lunch table — teenager squeezed up against the wall, granny sinking in a deck chair — and think, we’re going to need a bigger place.

The Yuletide traffic surge is a UK property market indicator. “If the phones don’t start ringing in the weeks after Christmas, then something is wrong,” says Roarie Scarisbrick, a buying agent at Property Vision.

This year the pressure is really on. Since the Conservatives returned a majority in this month’s general election, estate agents have forecasted great things in 2020: price rises and a bumper year in sales.

Are they right? I doubt it.

The overhanging uncertainties of 2019 are still overhanging. Brexit looks sure to go ahead on January 31, but the long-term trading arrangement with the EU is unclear. Given that the government has made an extension to the transition period less likely, the spectre of a no-deal Brexit — and the catastrophic effect this could have on the UK economy and housing market — has returned.