The number of mortgages approved to finance house purchase - a leading indicator of completed house sales - recovered further from its December low with a 2pc increase between January and February, according to Bank of England figures.
Approvals were virtually unchanged compared with February 2010, at 47,000, but are still 60pc lower than four years earlier.
Halifax expects limited support for house prices from the Government's new shared equity scheme, FirstBuy. It aims to help 10,000 first-time buyers - equivalent to 5pc of all first-time buyers in 2010 - to enter the market through the purchase of a newly-built property.
Under the scheme, the buyer will put down 5pc of the purchase price with a further 20pc provided by the government and the housebuilder in the form of a low interest loan.
Halifax also estimated that only 1.1pc of residential property sales will be affected by this month's increase in the stamp duty rate from 4pc to 5pc for homes worth over �1m. The increase will add �10,000 to the total stamp duty bill for someone paying �1m for a home.
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