The decline in mortgage lending to £12.4 billion last month marked an 8 percent drop from the month-earlier figures of £13.5 billion; and a whopping 52 percent plunge from the January 2008 figures.

According to CML - the Council of Mortgage Lenders - ever since 2001, the reported decline for January is the lowest monthly figure for total gross lending.

Though this week's government-published figures indicated that there was a 10.2 percent fall in the house prices in 2008, the number of mortgages taken out in 2008 was nearly half-a-million - the lowest in 34 years - as compared to the 1 million mortgage figures a year before.

In the opinion of Bob Pannell, CML's head of research, mortgage lending goings-on continue to be extremely weak, and "while people are searching eagerly for some signs of recovery, it would be unrealistic to expect a meaningful revival in lending in coming months. Even when conditions do improve, gross lending will be one of the later measures to recover."

Despite the optimistic data from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which suggests a rise in prospective buyers' interest, chief economist Howard Archer, of IHS Global Insight, said that for mortgage lenders, there had been "no change in fortunes" even after cuts in interest rates, which have brought the Bank of England base rate to an all-time low!