JUST as it was once traditional to report on the first cuckoo of spring, some of Britain’s indefatigable estate agents have recently been claiming to hear the early chirp of returning buyers. “It is…clear that parts of the market are perhaps beginning to bottom out…Our members are starting to see enquries increase again, as people begin to believe they can find a bargain,” says Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents. Last month, the NAEA professed to discern “finally…glimmers of hope,” with autumn figures “not as bad as expected” and a rise in the percentage of first-time buyers in the market.

Away from the world of glimmers and expectations, however, the actual figures remain resolutely bad. This week, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported that property transactions were at their lowest level since they started counting in 1978 – with London the hardest hit. According to the Halifax, UK prices fell by 15.9 per cent during 2008.

The borough of Greenwich took a smaller hit – 4.1 per cent down in the year to November, according to the Land Registry, and with actually a small rise in November itself. The number of transactions is now so small, however, that this last figure needs to be treated with considerable caution. Figures for SE10 alone show an annual reduction of almost 20 per cent – though the sample here is even smaller, and more fluctuating, and the figures even less certain.

So I thought I’d ask around myself to see whether any of the optimistic noises are matched by the reality of a better 2009. In one place, it seemed, they were. “We’re actually doing very well this year,” said Tony Usher, of King Sturge, formerly James Johnston. “Last weekend was incredibly busy. We’ve seen a pickup in applicants and viewers and we’ve had more investment buyers in the last 14 days than in the whole of the last year, roughly. We’ve tied up numerous sales, in Greenwich and Blackheath, and we’re about to deliver leaflets asking for more properties.”

Asked how many sales “numerous” meant, Mr Usher became rather more coy, declining even to discuss whether it meant single or double figures. He wasn’t allowed to tell me, he said, but promised someone would call me back, which they didn’t.

In all the other estate agents I asked, the only part of King Sturge’s good tidings they recognised was a rise in enquiries. “It’s better than it was before Christmas, which is something,” said Doug Norris of John Payne, probably the most important local agent and someone who can usually be trusted to tell it roughly as it is. “The number of viewings has increased substantially from almost next to nothing in the first three weeks of December. In the 15 days [since Christmas] we’ve been open we’ve arranged about 90 viewings at this branch. It has produced offers, some of which will go somewhere and some of which won’t.”

Mr Norris admitted, however, that the Greenwich branch of John Payne had not sold a single property since the first week of December and only 25 in the last six months – compared with a figure of about 15-20 a month at the 2007 peak. Two houses in West Greenwich are likely to be sold soon – on one of them, in Roan Street, there are three offers. Discounts on already depressed asking prices are around the 5 to per 10 per cent mark. “Buyers are still driving prices down and making random offers,” says Norris. “Vendors are coming to terms with [the falling market] now. Their expectation levels have come down and we can talk about prices sensibly.”

The trajectory is clear in the prices on local agents’ websites. A pretty three-storey end-of-terrace “needing upgrading” in King George Street, the heart of Greenwich’s nicest neighbourhood – the kind of house that might have fetched around £700,000 at the peak – came to the market at £599,995, is now down to £550,000 and is on the verge of finding a buyer at around the £500,000 mark.

A house in Peyton Place, nearby, started off, many months ago, at £710,000 and is still on the John Payne site, now at £599,995, with no offers shown. Many other properties have been for sale for over a year. And prices continue to be cut: a house “needing complete modernisation” in Calvert Road, East Greenwich, on at £395,000, is about to be reduced to £345,000 (the one next door sold last year for £475,000.) “I can’t be bullish about the market,” says Norris. “Not by any shape or form have we turned the corner.”

John Payne handles mainly period property, catering in many cases to established buyers with equity. At Oliver Bond, an agency with many of Greenwich’s large stock of new-build flats and a first-timer clientele, the picture is even worse. “Transactions of Victorian semis are going through with reductions of 10 to 15 per cent, but the newbuilds are being crucified,” says Bond’s Ryan Vella. “Valuers are predicting in some cases 40-45 per cent less than last year’s value. We are amazed at the level of enquiries, but we’re doing viewings but no offers. Once a purchase becomes a serious possibility, the buyers find out how difficult it is. The crucifying valuations combined with the difficulties getting mortgages are slowly killing us.”

Vella has, in fact, sold four properties already this year, although he says they are really hangovers from last year with buyers grimly perservering through all the difficulties. In the last six months, including those four, Oliver Bond has sold just eight properties. As with the other agents, rentals are keeping the shop going.

“I can’t for a moment believe that anyone is rushed off their feet selling,” he says. “Anyone who tells you different is insane.”

It’s easy to see why the NAEA is so keen to claim a bottoming out. No-one wants to buy a home for more than it will be worth in a few months’ time. No-one wants to buy a home that will immediately lose some of its value or (if a first-time buyer) put them into negative equity. The market, here and elsewhere, won’t recover until people feel that prices have reached their floor.

But on this evidence, that may not have happened yet.