There was a continuing increase in interest from potential home buyers over the course of the month of March this year, according to the latest figures from both the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

The recent trend of increased buyer interest appears to be continuing, with an increase of 12 per cent more people looking for a new home in March over the figures for February, although this interest has not yet translated into applications for new homeowner loans.

According to the latest figures from the British Banking Association (BBA), the number of new loans to home buyers and those looking to remortgage fell during the month of March to £8.9 billion, from £9.2 billion in the previous month, representing the lowest amount of new loans since April 2001. There has, of course, been a reduction in the number of people switching their homeowner loan, as a large number of borrowers are still better off staying on their existing lender’s standard variable rate loan, rather than remortgaging to a new product.

The decrease in the number of new homeowner loans this month follows three successive months of increased lending by banks and building societies and many experts believe that this is not something to be concerned about. David Dooks of the BBA said “The banks’ figures also show it would be unrealistic to expect the mortgage market to recover in a steady and consistent way in the current economic environment.”

These sentiments were echoed by a spokesman for RICS who believes that the current increased activity from potential home buyers will filter through the system over the coming months to provide a similar increase in the number of homeowner loan applications.