“I don’t think people are aware of the implications yet, particularly for listed homes,” said Ms Higgins.

But the chronic shortage of homes currently for sale means that any neccessary energy efficiency works will give buyers little negotiating power today, she said. In a few years’ time, however, when the market has cooled and new lending practices have kicked in, they may be unable to sell at the price they expected. “They might find they can only sell to cash buyers, or buyers with bigger deposits. It will be a much smaller, limited pool of buyers. The implication for house prices could be fairly substantial,” said Ms Higgins.

In time, this could trigger a shift towards new-build properties which have higher energy efficiency ratings, and away from rural, listed character properties, she added.

The impact of the net zero targets will be accelerated by two factors. First, rapidly rising energy costs will quickly make energy efficiency a bigger issue for buyers.

“The reality is that our housing stock in the UK is poor and our homes leak energy,” said Mr Adams. So far, this problem been largely concealed by the availability of cheap energy, but now rocketing costs have pushed this into stark relief.

“Increases in fuel prices are going to affect everyone. Homebuyers will become very sensitive to this. It will push it further up the agenda for purchasers. That will be reflected in house prices,” he said.

Second, analysts expect the pace of house price growth to cool sharply as interest rates rise, which will make upgrading properties less appealing.