The number of mortgage approvals hit a 13-year high last month as the Stamp Duty holiday continues to boost the property market.

Data from the Bank of England shows there were 84,700 approvals for house purchase during August, the highest since October 2007.

The figure is up 27.7% on a monthly basis but the Bank of England has warned that the overall lending levels are down so far this year.

There have been 418,000 mortgage approvals so far in 2020, the Bank of England said, compared with 524,000 for the same period in 2019.

Marc von Grundherr, director of estate agent Benham and Reeves, said: “We’ve seen little to no let-up in the volume of home buyers hitting the market despite a tightening of finance options available.

“Where they may have been traditionally buying with a 15% to 20% deposit, they’re now stretching to as much as 30%.

“They are doing so to not only to take advantage of the favourable rates currently on offer but to secure a Stamp Duty saving in the process.

“Since the Stamp Duty holiday was announced, the number of mortgage approvals seen on a monthly basis has more than doubled, and so the boost it has given the market cannot be underestimated.”

Anthony Codling of Twindig said: ” This is strong evidence of a huge recovery in housing market activity, but only time will tell if this is a housing market playing catch up or the early stages of a sustainable recovery. It will be interesting to see how many of these mortgage approvals convert into actual housing transactions.”

He produced this graph showing the relative size of the August figure.