Net mortgage borrowing reached £17.9bn in June, down from £19.6bn in May, the Bank of England’s latest money and credit report shows.

According to the data, approvals for residential property purchases dropped to 81,300 in June, but this was below the 86,900 recorded a month earlier.

This is actually the lowest number of approvals for property purchases witnessed since July last year, the Bank of England said.

In terms of remortgage approvals, 35,400 were recorded in total in June compared to 34,800 in May. The value of these approvals totalled £6.9bn in June, up from £6.8bn in May.

Gross mortgage lending, according to the Bank of England, increased to £43.8bn while gross repayments came to £27.7bn, up from £24.6bn and £18.9bn, respectively.

North London estate agent Jeremy Leaf commented: “As expected, these numbers are very strong, reflecting the frenzy as buyers tried to beat the stamp duty taper at the end of June.

“However, they don’t reflect what happened immediately afterwards and whether that level of activity was able to be sustained. We will be looking very closely at the next set of figures for mortgage approvals in particular as they always provide a useful direction of travel for the market.

“Only then will we be able to see just how far activity has fallen but certainly we don’t expect a major change based on what has been happening in the past few weeks on the high street.”