Mortgage numbers are at a low - but the decline appears to have largely arrested over the past month.
Mortgage approvals for July declined two thirds over those marked 12 months before, banks have said.
According to the British Bankers Association (BBA), which released the home loans data today, just 22,448 mortgages for people moving into a new home were agreed on last month. This is 65 percent lower than the total for July 2007, just before the beginning of the credit crunch.
Nevertheless, the BBA was swift to point out that the approvals total had not declined from that marked in June - meaning that the downturn in home loans numbers looks to have been arrested. The association also said today that net mortgage lending totals have also remained unchanged at £4.3 billion for two months in a row.
Commenting on the latest data, statistics director at the BBA David Dooks said: "The monthly numbers of approvals for house purchase, which have fallen by some two-thirds over the last year, levelled off in July. It would, however, be premature to think that the housing market will now start to recover, because overall approval activity continues to be very low."
The BBA's report found that the number of buy to let and equity release mortgages increased slightly in July. Remortgaging made up around half of total loan approvals over the month.
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