Latest figures show that mortgage approvals by the major banks increased to a 15-month high in June, according to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA).  

The figures show that 35,235 mortgages were approved for house purchases in June, up from 31,919 the previous month. The figures reflect the banks’ increased ability to lend and is 65% up on the same month a year earlier. However, the appetite for remortgaging and for borrowing with other loans remains subdued, the group said.  

The increase in mortgage approvals raises hopes that there will be subsequent rise in activity in the property market.  

The BBA’s statistics director has said that approvals have been recovering from a very low level since last November, but he suggested that the pick-up in mortgage lending by the major banks was in sharp contrast to a contraction in lending by other home loan providers.  

Howeve, some analysts remain to be convinced that there has been a significant shift in the housing market.  

The average value of a mortgage being approved by the major banks stands at £136,400, nearly 11% lower than last year, reflecting falls in house prices. Gross mortgage lending rose slightly, the first increase since April 2008.  

The number of approvals for remortgaging rose slightly in June, compared with May, to 28,133, but this was down 52% on a year earlier.  

In related figures, the BBA said that spending on credit cards remained stable, with people paying back as much as they were borrowing on plastic. However, personal loans, often for big purchases such as a new car, fell by £1.3bn in the first six months of the year.  

The lesson from these last figures seems to be that customers are demonstrating their lack of appetite for unsecured borrowing. This will remain the case as it makes sense for both sides, the lender and the borrower in the current climate.

Firstly, let me apologise to regular reader for my silence for the past two weeks. I have been on holiday and expected regular internet access but was disappointed. However, while I was away more evidence of a lift in housing market activity at the start of the summer has come from the latest figures released by the UK’s beloved tax authority.  

Some 75,000 UK residential properties costing more than £40,000 were sold in June, up 15% on the previous month, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said.  

This was the highest level of activity for a year, but still much lower than that seen for most of the decade. Seasonal factors were also shown to play a key part in the rise.  

Figures published this week showed that the total amount of money lent for home loans in the UK rose sharply in June.  

But the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said that the rise, to £12.3bn in June from £10.5bn a month earlier, was also largely reflective of seasonal factors.  

The HMRC’s provisional figures also shed light on the typical buoyancy in the housing market at this time of the year, as people show greater inclination to move during the early summer.  

Stripping out those disruptive seasonal factors, 65,000 sales were completed during June, down from a revised figure of 63,000 in May.  

Even so, this seasonally-adjusted total was the highest since October 2008, but well down on the 140,000 seen in June 2007 before the housing market slump.  

Less volatile quarterly figures from the HMRC showed that property transactions rose from 141,000 in the first three months of the year to 198,000 in the second quarter of 2009.  

The seasonally-adjusted figure of 191,000 was almost identical to the position in the third quarter of 2008, and higher than the subsequent two quarters.  

The effect of seasonal factors in the housing market does mean that in autumn and winter there will be a mini-slump, but when these factors are removed the overall trend is clear and is upwards, which is great news after mixed messages for so long.