Is the west country hot property once again?

Everyone called her brave. Many called her foolish.
And she herself is blessed with a lucky name.

In January Debbie Fortune opened an estate agency, in the pretty North Somerset village of Wrington. It was the depth of the housing crash, the worst trading conditions most in the business had seen for a generation. But as she told me at the time, "things could only get better."

So have they? Nine months on, I call in on her shop to see how her new baby is faring.

"We're selling houses," she smiles. "The level of activity for the middle of October is unprecedented."

"Oh come on Debbie," I chide, "you're an eternal optimist - your cup is always half full. Things aren't that good, surely?"

She tells me it's not just her agency, but the surveyors and solicitors she works with have noticed it too. Many have had to take more staff on to replace those they lost in the winter of 2008.

Up the road in Bristol, I hear the same story. When a short report on this ran on BBC Points West this morning, the phone started ringing. Andrews, a big chain of agents that operate across the West Country, told me Bristol is hot hot hot.

"We were filming with a TV property show last week," their chief executive tells me, "and they said they hadn't seen houses sell as fast as Bristol anywhere outside London."

OK, estate agents are always optimists, always talking up the market. But the sold signs are convincing. And although the actual sales figures are confidential, I have seen them - and they aren't making it up.

So what's going on? Who's buying? Who's lending again? What happened to the crunch?

The simplest answer comes from one of Debbie Fortune's buyers. Catherine Spalding is gushing over a £675k family house in Churchill, North Somerset. Old pine kitchen, stone floors, plenty of light and views, a playroom for the kids. Catherine's only question is, can she sell her own house in Bristol to move out?

"We just need to move," she tells me, "to find room for this growing family. We didn't really think about the economy at all!"

George, her 18-month-old boy, is bouncing around on the stone floors, loving the space. Catherine is a dentist, her husband's job is secure, they can enjoy record low mortgages and the price gap for people trading up is smaller now than ever. It all makes sense.

That's been the story of this recession in the West Country. The "haves and have nots" are no longer about money, but secure work. If your job is safe - and plenty are - then the cost of living has really dropped dramatically, and those people are spending again.

But there's something beyond the practical sums.

"There's just a really strong confident feeling around," Debbie Fortune insists. People, she thinks, can sense when the market is hot again, and they move fast. In Bristol, Andrews are taking sealed bids on some houses, so keen is the interest.

So is that it? A massive fall in prices - over 20% in a year in Bristol and Bath - huge job losses in estate agencies and solicitors offices; and now - the sun comes out again?

Confidence, luck, optimism; these are the intangibles of a recovery. Does fortune favour the brave? Debbie will find out over the next year, that's for sure.