By Charlotte Beugge

The housing market has ground to a near standstill since the start of this year, with buyers facing the smallest ever choice of new homes put up for sale.

According to property website Rightmove, which lists around 90% of the homes on sale through UK estate agents, asking prices in the first week of 2012 rose by 1.4% which suggests sellers are trying to cash in on the shortage of homes on the market.

Estate agents are getting just one new property on their books per branch each week - a total of 34,433 homes across the country and the lowest figure ever seen. It is half the level seen in pre-credit crunch days.

However, Britons are still obsessed with property and even though there is little out there, there was a 27% increase in the number of searches through Rightmove in the first ten days of the year. This suggests the desire to move is there - although "mortgage famine" and other factors could be holding back would-be buyers and sellers.

Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, says that house hunters are desperately searching online, "ready to pounce on fresh property coming to market to see if it will satisfy their housing need".

He goes on to add: "This search addiction is in part caused by each estate agency branch currently listing an average of less than one new property per week, an all-time low and around half of pre-credit crunch levels."

Rightmove said the average asking price of a home this month is £224,060, down 0.8% on December but 0.4% up on January 2011.