The latest figures from the trade body showed tracker mortgages had grown in popularity to 35%, from 33% in January and 14% in February last year. However, the proportion of borrowers choosing fixed-rate loans fell to 52% in February.

February’s first-time buyers borrowed 88% of the property’s value on average, unchanged from January, and 3.33 times income – compared to 3.32 in January. Those moving home, on the other hand, typically borrowers 71% of the property value, up from 70% in January, and 2.97 times their income, which was unchanged from the previous month.

Gross lending totalled £25bn in February, a drop of 3.5% from January, and remortgaging made up 45% of all lending during the month. This sort of activity is likely to remain high, according to the CML.

Michael Coogan, director general of the CML, said: “The trend away from fixed-rate products continues as expectations of further Base Rate reductions, probably starting this week, have increased.

“While lower short-term interest rates help a little, we continue to urge the Bank of England to use more broad-based and flexible measures to increase liquidity levels in the UK market so that firms have sufficient funding available to match consumer borrowing demand in 2008.”

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The CML noted that the figures relate to applications taken out several months ago and so do not reflect the shrinking availability of mortgage products and the re-pricing that has occurred in the market recently.