The height of the summer holiday season, August usually sees a hiatus in lending activity to some degree, but it is widely expected and passes without much comment. However, this year has been different because market conditions are different.

This year we’ve seen the economic recovery begin to strengthen to such a degree that speculation over a rise in the Bank Base Rate is now being talked about in terms of specific months.

At the same time, house prices (in some areas) have been rising month-on-month, overall lending levels have been increasing, and lenders have been coming out with some very competitive products of late.

This means that any and all changes to house prices, lending figures, and mortgage criteria are being seized upon to show… well to show different things according to who is doing the interpreting.

The latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show month-on-month homeowner borrowing fell 5% in August. But on a year-on-year basis it was still 13% up on the same time last year.

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From these figures some commentators have suggested it could be start of a slowdown in the housing market, arguing that the tighter lending criteria brought in earlier in the year has delayed many applications until August and without this then we would have seen a more significant dip.

Others point to the impact of rising house prices and house price-to-earnings ratios to suggest this is the beginning of an expected slowing of the market. Still others have argued that the figures will have been impacted temporarily as borrowers on both sides of the Scottish border have hesitated while they evaluated the potential effect of Scottish independence and any repercussions this would have for mortgage rates.

Making any predictions on the basis of the August market figures alone is tricky. The figures could be a result of one, none or any combination of these issues. We are only really going to know which, if any, of these theories are true several months from now. And in that time there could have been other factors which come to the fore and impacted on borrowing activity.

Competition in the market remains healthy and at the end of the day the most important thing from market perspective is consistency and that lenders continue to support the market as a whole.

Mike Jones is director of intermediaries at Lloyds Banking Group