The Council of Mortgage Lenders has welcomed the announcement from the Bank of England of an increase in the amount of approved loans during April.

Commenting on today’s lending data from the Bank of England, CML economist Paul Samter observed: “House purchase approvals continued to edge up in April, to 43,000 in the month on a seasonally adjusted basis. This is up from 40,000 in March and is the highest level since April last year (when the figure was 55,000, so this May’s number still represents a 22% fall year-on-year).

“It looks almost inevitable that May approvals will be higher than a year ago for the first time since early 2007. However, activity remains at extremely low levels on any historic comparison – and weaker than at any point in the early 1990s. Limited lending capacity and the impact of further job losses are likely to act as a ceiling for how far the improvement can continue, although there could be further modest rises in the coming months.”