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The Council of Mortgage lenders has showed that 11,400 mortgages were taken out in Scotland in the second quarter of this year.

Thats a 50% rise from the 7,600 recorded in the previous quarter, but almost 40% below the same time in 2008.

The rise in mortgage lending in Scotland was an even split across the board of first-time buyers and home movers.

4,300 mortages went  to first-time buyers and 7,200 to movers.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said Scotland was similar to that in the rest of the UK although mortgages were slightly more affordable because house prices were lower lower.

But there was further evidence that lending remained exceedingly tight.

First-time buyers typically put down a 25% deposit in the second quarter, unchanged from the previous quarter but up from 13% a year earlier.

FTB’s borrowed on average 2.85 x their income.

Home movers borrowed 2.55 x their income (2.73 across the UK).

Interest payments typically consumed 11.1% of Scottish home movers’ income (compared with 11.3% across the UK), the lowest share since the second quarter of 2004.

A spokesman for the Council of Mortgage Lenders in Scotland said the figures showed that lending in the mortgage market was beginning to stabilise which was encouraging.

Kennedy Foster also warned: “It will be a slow path to full recovery with significant obstacles presented by the restricted access to mortgage funding, fewer active mortgage lenders in the market, rising unemployment and limited consumer demand”.