UK property market pick-up 'coming to an end'

The recent pick-up in the British property market showed signs of running out of steam today, with a fall in the number of new mortgages approved for house purchase.

A total of 115,000 new home loans were approved for people buying property during February, well down on the January total of 121,000, according to the Bank of England.

The figures were in line with those reported by the British Bankers’ Association earlier this week.

Although the BBA approvals showed a 28% jump in new mortgages for house purchase compared with the previous month, they are not seasonally adjusted, and once seasonal factors were stripped out they were weaker than January’s numbers.

Philip Shaw, an economist at Investec, said: “The figures indicate that the mini revival in the housing market may be coming to an end, although you can’t base too much on one month’s data.”

He added that the number of mortgage approvals and housing transactions had risen sharply during the past 12 to 15 months and they couldn’t continue at that rate.