After three months of figures indicating improvements in the housing market, the latest statistics showed renewed falls in the number of approved new mortgages.

Approvals in March fell 6.8% from the previous month to 26,097. This also represented a fall of 25% over the figures from March last year. In terms of the value of mortgage approvale, £8.9 billion was approved but this still represents a 47% drop from March last year and is the lowest value of approvals since April 2001.

These figures also show that the size of the average mortgage has fallen considerably. Whilst first time buyers largely remain frozen out of a market which is frequently demanding deposits of 20 or 25%, it is clear that mortgages for the upper end of the market are also in very short supply. At one time bankers would hand out £500,000 mortgages like bags of sweeties – but no longer. And at the moment, apart from preditory purchases from distressed sellers, the buy to let market is dead in the water and this further hits the lower end of the market.

By a simple deduction, the overall picture suggests that the housing market is likely to move better in the middle price ranges and stagnation will continue at the top and bottom of the market. Properties will just stick on the estate agents books.

So how will house prices move? The British Bankers Association still believes that house prices will fall quite a lot further. “We have some way to go”, their spokesman commented.

I’m afraid we agree.