May house purchase lending 8 per cent up on a year ago

There was a total of 53,800 loans taken by home-owners during the month, up 13 per cent on April and 5 per cent on May 2015.

Meanwhile, first-time buyers borrowed £4.3bn, up 10 per cent on April and 23 per cent on May last year.

This equated to 27,500 loans, up 9 per cent month-on-month and 16 per cent year-on-year.

Home movers borrowed £5.1bn, up 19 per cent on April but down 2 per cent compared to a year ago.

This represented 26,300 loans, up 18 per cent month-on-month but down 5 per cent on May 2015.

Remortgage activity totalled £5.2bn, down 15 per cent on April but up 30 per cent compared to a year ago.

This came to 30,900 loans, down 12 per cent month-on-month but up 25 per cent compared to a year ago.

Landlords borrowed £2.6bn, up 4 per cent month-on-month but down 4 per cent year-on-year. This came to 16,600 loans in total, up 3 per cent compared to April but down 8 per cent compared to May 2015.

The CML now publishes seasonally adjusted monthly and quarterly data, alongside the normal unadjusted data.

This makes it easier to spot underlying trends.

Paul Smee, director general of the CML, said: “There was a sense of the market regaining some equilibrium in May, following the stamp duty driven spike in March and the subsequent dip in April. For the second month running, first-time buyers borrowed more than home movers, the first time in 20 years that this has been the case. Buy-to-let continues at lower levels as expected, after the change to stamp duty.

“Brexit, and its likely effect on the market, is a question to which the answer will not immediately be forthcoming. Lenders will continue to be open for business as usual, but lending volumes may be affected by uncertain consumer sentiment.”