The figures showed that seasonally adjusted lending rose to £5.2 billion in January, following 'exceptionally strong' demand for remortgages.
This trend is predicted to continue according to David Dooks, the Association's statistics director, who suggested that it was largely driven by borrowers shopping around for the best deals.
"Although house prices and new loans for house purchase appear to be subdued as the housing market slows, the strength of remortgaging would suggest competition for mortgage business and switching remains high," he said.
House purchase approvals were £0.6 billion lower than the six month average, accounting for £7.2 billion of total gross lending.
The fact that remortgage approvals are faster to feed through to industry statistics does have some bearing on this figure though.
Remortgages certainly accounted for the lions share of approvals in January at 49 per cent, equating to almost 80,000.
However loans for equity withdrawal have continued to decline, dropping below the six month average to 39,172.
