Remortgaging reached its highest level for seven years, but house purchase mortgage lending was sharply down in January compared with the previous month.

The fall was in line with seasonal trends.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said that loans to home-movers were 27% down on December, but 5% up on January last year. Altogether, there were 46,200 such loans.

There were 21,400 loans to first-time buyers, down 28% month on month, but up 6% annually.

The CML also reports a fall in loans for buy-to-let purchase.

There were 7,800 such mortgages, down from December’s figure of 10,300 and down from 9,500 in January 2015.

The figures are unadjusted.

CML director general Paul Smee said that while the unadjusted data appears to show “large falls in January compared to December, stripping out the usual January lull, we see a general picture of flat house purchase lending, but a significant uptick in remortgage activity”.