Zoopla's latest housing market snapshot reveals a striking paradox at the heart of Britain's property sector: buyer demand is rebuilding at pace even though the average household's borrowing power has fallen sharply since the low-rate era of 2021. According to the property portal, buyer enquiries have risen meaningfully year-on-year, yet the mortgage arithmetic underpinning those enquiries has deteriorated substantially, with typical buying power down by close to a fifth compared with three years ago. For an industry that spent much of 2023 bracing for a demand collapse, this resilience is both reassuring and revealing of a market that has quietly recalibrated its expectations.