The Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association says exceptional circumstances are impacting the housing market making it impossible to assess what conditions will be like in the long term following the Mortgage Market Review.
Charles Haresnape, the chairman of IMLA, says that with mortgage approvals having hit almost 125,000 back in January - three months before MMR took effect - it was entirely predictable that numbers would fall as mortgage constraints took effect later in the spring.
However, to most observers' surprise, mortgage approvals reached another peak in July followed by two months of decline. September's figures, released yesterday by the Bano of England, were particularly severe.
They showed mortgage approvals were at the lowest level since July 2013; just 61,247 were given the go-ahead in September, down from 64,054 in August.
Clearly there are exceptional circumstances still impacting the market, with the arrival of lending caps and higher stress tests hot on the heels of MMR. With base rate speculation also impacting consumer appetite and product pricing, there have been forces pulling in opposite directions says Haresnape.
What's clear is that house prices are not causing the same concerns that they were at the beginning of summer and mortgage businesses have also negotiated a period of significant change without the market falling away he says.
What must now follow is a period of review to ensure that the recovery remains on track and that brokers are still equipped with the products they need to meet customer needs.
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