Mortgage approvals at 2009 levels

In the week before Christmas, there were more than 8000 home loans approved.

It was the first time that benchmark had been passed since April 2009.

The past four weeks of approval figures have been released by the central bank.

In the week ending December 21, there were 8299 approvals, up almost a quarter on a year-on-year basis.

They were worth $1.347 billion, up 34.9%.

In the most recent week for which data is available, ended January 11,  there were 4971 approvals, worth $738 million.

The Christmas holidays snapped a record-breaking run of 36 consecutive weeks of approvals topping $1 billion.