There were 65,469 mortgage approvals for house purchase in September, LSL firm e.surv has forecast.

It makes monthly predictions based on its own data – with a 2.8% margin of error over the last 12 months compared with the final data from the Bank of England.

If e.surv’s forecast figure is correct, it represents a 2% monthly rise, but a fall of 1.8% on September last year.

e.surv is also predicting a rise in the number of loans to borrowers with a deposit of 15% or less. It says there were 11,600 such loans in September, the second highest since June 2008.

Rival valuations firm Connels Survey & Valuation has also reported a very similar pattern for September – in its case, a monthly rise in valuations activity but an annual drop.

It says that the number of valuations it did in September was 42% up on August but 12% down on September last year.

Valuations for first-time buyers followed a similar pattern – up 39% on a monthly basis but down 13% annually.

Meanwhile, for August, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has reported a 3% monthly drop in house purchase lending, down to 65,400 loans.

Of these, 28,900 loans were to first-time buyers – 4% fewer than in July but 9% up on August 2013.

Putting together the three sources of information, it looks as though August’s mortgage market was worse than July, but stronger than August last year.

By contrast, September looks to have been better than August, but weaker than September a year ago.