While official housing figures show a steep decline in lending since the start of the year, a report from one of the country's biggest mortgage aggregators, AFG, suggests a pick-up in activity may be underway.The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported yesterday that (on a seasonally adjusted basis) the value of financial commitments for owner-occupied housing fell 4.8 per cent in February 2011, after having fallen 5.1 per cent in January.The ABS also reported that the value of loans to residential property investors fell 2.3 per cent in February.Over the past 12 months total monthly dwelling commitments have fallen by 5.6 per cent - from A$20.8 billion in February last year to $19.3 billion a year later.However, mortgage aggregator AFG reported yesterday that lending may be on the up. AFG brokers wrote $2.5 billion of loans in March - up 22 per cent, from $2.05, in February.AFG's numbers have been extremely volatile of late, with a 36 per cent plunge in loan sales in January, followed by a 56 per cent increase in February, and another strong gain in March.The AFG figures are a reasonably close match with the ABS's raw data (before changes are made to produce seasonally adjusted and trend numbers).  ABS raw data is tracking AFG's figures, showing a plunge in January and a strong recovery in February.However, lenders that have been engaged in the mortgage war over the past couple of months will be disappointed with AFG's finding that the proportion of loans being used for refinancing actually fell between February and March. Deals designed to persuade borrowers to switch lenders have not yet had an impact.Broker group Mortgage Choice reported earlier in the week that there was very strong demand for variable rate loans. Ninety per cent of loans written by the group's brokers in March were on variable rates - the highest level for five months.According to the broker, this was evidence that all the special deals on standard variable rate loans were having some effect.