This was down 1.8% from December 2019, but January is generally a slow month for the mortgage market.

Small deposit borrowers (those with a LTV of 85% and above) increased market share from 25.5% to 26.7%.This group includes many first-time buyers. The number of small deposit borrowers was 17,623, which is higher than the 16,895 recorded in the previous month.

Conversely, the proportion of loans approved to customers with large deposits (LTV up to 60%) fell from 27.3% in December to 25.5% the following month.

Remortgage activity was strong, which caused a slight rise in the proportion of loans being taken out by mid-market customers (LTV of 60-85%) during January. In total, 47.8% of mortgages went to mid-market customers, higher than the 47.2% in December.

Richard Sexton, director at e.surv, commented: “While the market fell slightly following the December bump, rumours of a Bank of England base rate cut appear to have had little appreciable impact on the mortgage market, with a strong performance among several key buyer groups in January.

“Existing homeowners benefited from low remortgage rates and were persuaded to switch to a new deal, while new buyers also swooped to seal low interest rates for their first purchase.

“January saw an increase in approvals for small deposit buyers – typically an indication that more first-time buyers have made their first step onto the property ladder.

“We have also seen a shift towards the midmarket as those able to pull together sizeable deposits, often existing homeowners, secure cheap mortgage deals at the start of the year.”

e.surv analyses detailed data on over one million mortgage valuations the firm carried out between August 2006 and today. Each month, the researchers analyse tens of thousands of valuations and use these trends to extrapolate from the Bank of England’s mortgage data to publish mortgage approval numbers for the whole of the UK, before the Bank of England.