March saw mortgage approvals for home-buyers plummet to a record low as the credit crunch continued to take its toll on the housing market.

Only 64,000 loans were approved for people moving house during the month, the lowest figure since the Bank of England began collecting data in April 1993 and 44% below March 2007's level.

Approvals were down across the board, with 10% fewer mortgages in the pipeline than during February, while the value of loans approved slumped to a near 13-year low of £24 billion.

Even approvals for people remortgaging - which should be boosted by the estimated 1.4 million people whose short-term fixed rate and tracker deals end this year - fell during the month, with 98,000 loans approved, 11,000 less than in February.

The figures were in line with those reported by the British Bankers' Association, which showed mortgage approvals for house purchases slumped by 46% in March compared with the same month of 2007.

Mortgage lending is being hit by the double whammy of a cooling housing market and the problems caused by the credit crunch.

Banks and building societies are increasing their rates, demanding ever-higher deposits and pulling deals that are attracting too much business as they try to limit the amount of lending they do.

Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said: "The news that mortgage approvals dropped to a record low of 64,000 is hardly surprising given that lenders have been aggressively scaling back on the provision of finance to home-buyers."

He said it was unlikely that the bottom of the cycle had yet been reached.

Unsurprisingly, given the weak approvals figures in previous months, the value of mortgages advanced during March was also subdued.

Gross lending continued its downward trend, totalling £26.73 billion, down from £28.4 billion in February.

Net lending, which strips out redemptions and repayments, fell to its lowest level since December 2004, rising by just £6.93 billion.

John Ward, of the Centre for Economic and Business Research, said the Bank of England's data "vividly illustrated the effects of the credit crunch on the housing market".

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