The Latest Bank of England figures show that £5.8bn was paid off the UK’s housing debt in the first quarter of 2011, meaning equity withdrawal figures have been negative for 12 quarters (3 years) now.

The Bank’s latest figures for housing equity withdrawal showed borrowers had injected the equivalent of 2.3% of their post-tax income into their homes in the first quarter of the year.

This followed record payments of 2.8% of post-tax income, in the final quarter of 2010 and means that since the middle of 2008 homeowners have invested a total of £63.7bn in housing.

The Bank’s figures cover new borrowing secured on property that is not used for house purchase, home moving costs such as stamp duty or home improvements.

The figures for housing equity withdrawal have been negative for 12 successive quarters with the trend beginning in the middle of 2008. For the previous 11 years there had been a significant withdrawal of equity, including a record £13.4bn in the first quarter of 2007.

The latest figures from HM Revenue & Customs show there were 173,000 house sales in the UK in the first three months of the year, well down on the 459,000 recorded in the last quarter of 2006 when the housing market was nearing its peak.