Mortgage approvals for house purchase increased in February, reversing a trend of two months of consecutive falls in December and January.

Data from the British Bankers’ Association showed non-seasonally adjusted house purchase approval numbers of 36,608 last month, up from 29,743 the month before.

The average value of loans for house purchase also increased from £182,500 to £185,800.

However, the figure for February is down on 2016 when there were 39,509 approvals.

The value of loans for house purchase increased slightly on January from £6.503bn to £6.553bn. This was down from £6.7bn in February 2016.

On a seasonally adjusted basis house purchase approvals fell 4.6% annually and 3.5% on a monthly basis to 42,613.

However, it was still above the seasonally adjusted 2016 monthly average of 41,287.

Eric Leenders, managing director of retail banking for the BBA, obviously preferred the seasonally adjusted data to the ‘actuals’. He said: “Elevated approval volumes for house purchases and re-mortgaging experienced during the winter months fell back in February, to average levels seen throughout most of last year.”

Commenting on the figures, Jeremy Leaf, north London estate agent and a former RICS residential chairman, said that at first sight, the figures did not look encouraging.

He said: “When you consider that the figures for the month are still above the average for the same time last year and are being compared with a time when the market was much more active prior to the introduction of higher Stamp Duty for second home owners and investors, you realise that they are not that bad.

“The numbers bear out what we are finding on the high street – that people are in the market but they are negotiating hard and taking longer to make their minds up before taking the plunge.

“The other bit of potential good news for the market is that remortgaging numbers are relatively low because when these numbers are rising it is often a sign that people want to stay put rather than look for their next property.”