Despite these increases, remortgage approvals decreased by 600 to 37,200 over the same period.

Private non-financial corporations (PNFCs) raised, on net, £0.2bn of finance in September, following net borrowing of £6.2bn in the previous month.

The flow of sterling net lending to private sector companies and households (M4Lex) was £19.5bn in September, compared to £10.2bn in August, according to the BoE.

 September’s lending was driven by increases of £11.1bn, £5.3bn, and £3.1bn in the flow of net lending to NIOFCs, households, and PNFCs respectively.

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Finance and property professionals gave their take:

Jeremy Leaf, estate agent and a former RICS residential chairman:

“Mortgage approvals always provide the best evidence of likely market activity over the next quarter at least. These figures show that prospective purchasers are setting aside concerns about new taxes in the Budget, for the time being at least.
“On the ground, we are seeing plenty of resilience and a grim determination to keep transactions running even though they are becoming more protracted and often subject to some tough renegotiating."

Tomer Aboody, director at MT Finance:

“The ongoing uncertainty with regard to the upcoming Budget is inevitably resulting in buyers and sellers adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach. 

“Despite cheaper borrowing rates, transactional levels remain stunted. This further underlines the case for the Chancellor taking action in her Budget to reduce or reform stamp duty in order to allow the market to really start to function effectively, which in turn will help strengthen the wider economy.”