The stamp duty overhaul has already sparked a new flurry of housing market activity, with estate agents predicting a New Year bounce in sales.

Some agents reported seeing an immediate impact following the changes announced in the Autumn Statement, with buyers calling up within minutes to add an extra £10,000 onto previous offers.

Others reported sales of top-end homes being rushed through in order to beat the hike in the tax that those buying the most expensive properties would see.

In one case, a buyer in the Notting Hill area of London had their sale fast-tracked in order to save £170,000, according to an estate agent.

Mark Hayward, managing director of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), said the housing market could well see an uplift in the New Year.

He said the announcement had had a positive response from its members, particularly those dealing with house sales in the "middle market pinch points" of around £250,000 and £500,000.

Mr Hayward said that with many people preoccupied with their preparations for Christmas, the New Year could be the period when people decide the time is right to put their homes on the market.

He said: "They will have more choice and they will have a little bit more money."

The reforms have put an end to the much-criticised structure of stamp duty, which meant that home buyers were liable for tax at a single rate on their entire property price, depending on what price bracket the home they were buying fell into.

From today, stamp duty will be levied in a graduated way, like income tax.

Buyers will only pay the rate of tax on the part of the property price that falls within each tax band.

Some 98% of people who pay stamp duty will see the amount they pay cut as a result of the changes, meaning a £4,500 saving for someone buying a family home with a typical price tag of £275,000.

The tipping point comes above £937,500, where the stamp duty cost of buying a home remains unchanged, with people buying more expensive homes facing higher costs than they would have done under the old system.

Mr Hayward said the changes had caused some concerns at the top end of the market, where he said the "spectre" of Labour's proposed mansion tax was also hovering.

He said that activity could slow temporarily at the top end of the market as it picked up elsewhere.

Keith Gorny, prime sales director at London-based estate agent Marsh and Parsons, said property sales which may otherwise have drifted into next week were "rushed through" yesterday.

He said: "In one instance, a house in central Notting Hill was fast-tracked to save the buyer an additional £170,000 in stamp duty - the 10 working days allowed for the conveyance process was reduced to four hours."

Analysis from Savills suggested people buying a home worth between £1 million and £2 million would see their stamp duty bill increase by around £13,500, based on the average value of sales in this range which had already taken place this year.

Lucian Cook, Savills UK head of residential research said: "At the top end of the market, experience tells us that an increase in tax liability takes time to be absorbed, though we expect these changes to have less impact than an annual tax in the form of a mansion tax might have had."

Andrew Hipkiss, a regional representative of the NAEA who is based at Walton and Hipkiss estate agents in Hagley in the West Midlands, also saw an immediate mood change among buyers.

He said: "We saw increased offers from buyers within 10 minutes of the autumn statement stamp duty announcement, with an average increase of £10,000 to each offer."

One example included a property for which a potential buyer had offered £260,000.

Following the announcement, this offer was upped to £270,000, he said.

Halifax, which predicted previously that house prices would increase at a slower pace in 2015 than they had done this year, said yesterday's stamp duty announcement had not caused it to revise its forecast that property values would edge up nationally by 3% to 5% across next year.

A Halifax spokeswoman said it expected the overhaul would prompt a "modest boost" to house sales and it could also have a slightly negative impact on the top end of the market, particularly in London.

She said: "Overall, it does not affect our 3% to 5% price increase prediction."

David Newnes, director of Your Move and Reeds Rains estate agents, said it should be remembered that across Northern England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the average price of a first-time buyer home was still less than £125,000, meaning it was not liable for stamp duty in any case.

Research conducted by Yorkshire Building Society earlier this year found that for first-time buyers and those who were already on the property ladder, paying stamp duty was the second biggest cost challenge they faced, after raising a deposit.

Tanya Jackson, Yorkshire's head of corporate affairs, said the new system represented "a dramatic improvement" and made almost all buyers better off.

But she said it was worth bearing in mind that that the starting point at which stamp duty kicked in remained the same as it was yesterday, at homes worth over £125,000.

This would still potentially lead to more buyers being pushed into paying stamp duty as house prices increased, she said.