Banks squash green shots

Over the past few weeks there have been more and more positive stories, whether its been more cheerful estate agents or mortgage approvals and some indices have shown house prices stopping falling. This coupled with more daylight in the evenings and some decent weather has felt like we have stepped out of a very dark winter, blinking in the sunlight with a whole summer ahead of us.

Most of the UK are stakeholders in the property market or some kind, whether they work in the property sector, whether they own or whether they work for a bank which has a large exposure to the property market. The group of stakeholders who hold the property market in their hands is the banks. The market will live or die by their actions (or lack of them).

Todays figures show that mortgage lending by the UK's major banks fell for the first time in four months in March, squashing any thoughts of a spring housing market recovery. The number of mortgages approved for house purchases fell to 26,097 in March, down 6.8% from February and 25% lower than a year earlier. The British Bankers' Association, which produced the figures, said it expected fluctuations during a recession. worryingly it added that savers were also reluctant to make more deposits with interest rates low.

These figures should inject a bit more realism into the market, the positive news of the last month shows that in some areas things aren't getting worse and in some cases are improving, however the housing market has a long way to go before a sensible sustainable recovery starts.