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In light of recent conflicting reports on house prices, the British Bankers' Association (BBA) has attempted to shed some light on the state of the UK's property market. According to their latest figures for June, mortgage approvals by the major banks increased to a 15-month high, suggesting that people are beginning to regain confidence in the property market.

In total last month, 35,235 mortgages were approved for house purchases. That compares very favourably to May's figure of 31,919, and represents a growth of almost exactly two thirds from June 2008, when the credit crunch first took hold of the property market. Mortgage lending now appears to have bottomed out last November, and industry observers are cautiously optimistic that the housing market has passed the worst, with gross mortgage lending rising for the first time in 14 months.

There was less good news for the remortgaging sector, with relatively few people opting to extract equity from their properties, although this could also be seen as a sign of increased prudence among the nation's homeowners. Remortgaging up to the hilt was a common occurrence during the credit boom earlier this decade. The average value of a mortgage being approved by the major banks is now £136,400, just over 10 per cent less than the same time last year.

The BBA's statistics director David Dooks admitted that "people are showing little appetite for unsecured borrowing", in light of a £1.3 billion drop in personal loans over the first six months of this year, despite low interest rates and an increased willingness to lend on the part of the biggest financial institutions. Smaller lenders are still contracting their lending volumes in an attempt to maintain liquidity and avoid over-stretching their finances at an economically volatile time.