The main house price indices are published like clockwork every month and provide a snapshot of the UK housing market – they are often wildly different and given the methodology and the data set employed one can’t help but take them with a pinch of salt.

Having said this, they can often reinforce what has been happending on the ground at any one time and I believe the latest iteration of the Nationwide index does just that. Perhaps not in so much of the actual data it offers but the commentary that goes along with it. For what it’s worth Nationwide reported that average house prices increased by 0.5% in October, following a fall of 0.1% in the month previously. Despite this increase, annual prices – perhaps a much more well-informed measure to use – fell back from 9.4% to 9%.

It was this annual fall that led Nationwide’s chief economist, Robert Gardner, to suggest that the “market has lost momentum”. Unsurprisingly, and perhaps with one eye firmly on the headlines this would generate, the media has picked up on this statement as if it is the word of the housing gods and that from here on in, we can all expect the market to slip further back. Adding fuel to the fire has been Nationwide’s own figures suggesting mortgage approvals were down some 20% in September, compared to the very start of the year.

Now, while I won’t suggest that these numbers are incorrect, perhaps we should give some context to what we believe to be happening. Certainly, the start of 2014 might seem a long time ago but it’s absolutely relevant to look back at the motivations – particularly for lenders – during this period. We all know that the MMR hit in April 26th and lenders certainly anticipated a slowdown in activity leading up to, during, and beyond the implementation of the new rules. This meant that in the period towards the end of last year and the start of this, lenders were looking to ‘get ahead of the curve’ in terms of approving and completing loans. I believe the FCA described this as ‘filling their boots’.

Add into this the fact that the post-MMR affordability constraints meant, without doubt, that borrowers who would have been accepted for a loan prior to MMR were not after it was brought in, and you have some further reasons behind why there has been something of a slowdown since April. This pullback in lending from many players in the middle part of the year does indeed take some time to work its way through the system, and we have seen the results of this in the various ‘slowing down’ data reports that have come through recently.

However, by the time the surveys and research for October and November this year, come out in the early part of 2015, I suspect we will see much more similarity between them and the early part of this year. The reason is that lenders have, for the most part, worked through the teething troubles of MMR and are now looking at their appetite to lend in the lead up to the end of 2014 and beyond. That appetite is returning and you need only look at the large number of ultra-competitive deals currently being pushed into the marketplace to realise that lenders want their share of business. Criteria is also starting to be eased and we have seen a number of active providers, for example, targeting the self-employed or the contractor market – individuals that may have been adversely impacted by the MMR rules. The FCA is also leaning on the lenders to work much more within the spirit of the rules rather than gold-plating them to borrowers’ detriment.

Which all goes towards predicting that the end of this year is likely to present a far more positive picture than the middle months. Indeed, not only are we seeing a very welcome move back towards the intermediary market but we are also seeing lenders entering new product spaces that historically they would never dreamed of touching – I’m thinking of Santander’s recent announcement regarding a potential lifetime mortgage offering in 2015.

Therefore while these indices and surveys do give us a view of the housing market picture we should not forget the time lag that exists in much of the results and we should also not forget that we work in a particularly fluid sector which can change quickly. I believe we have seen significant changes in just the past month and this will mean a much more positive end to the year than some are anticipating.

Harpal Singh is managing director of BrokerConveyancing.co.uk