Borrowing amounts are rising again – for the first time this year. The average amount that people wanted to borrow in March was £134,900, up 1.5% from February and 2.5% more than last March.

This was led by London which saw a huge 6.65% rise in the amount people wanted to borrow, taking the average requested mortgage in the capital to £221,000, a new all-time high. Although there was a slight fall in London’s borrowing amounts last month, this is still a huge rise that outstrips anything else in the UK. London amounts are a significant £54,000 more than consumers ask to borrow in any other region of the UK and is more than double what people are asking for anywhere from the Midlands northwards.

The number of borrowers was a different picture. This fell for the first time since December. This is a recurring pattern at this time of year – after a surge in borrowers in January and February, there is always a drop in numbers in March. This is likely to fall slightly further in April with the Easter period.

Interestingly, the number of advisers interested in buying leads has risen, increasing lead price slightly and taking the average to £12. Again, this altered around the regions: you might think that the highest priced leads were in London as the borrowing amounts, and therefore advisers’ potential returns are so high, but the highest priced leads were actually in Anglia where the average requested borrowing was £142,000, not low, but £80,000 less than in London and down 1% from last month.

Scotland, where borrowers requested to borrow just £109,500, the joint lowest borrowing amounts in the UK, actually had the second highest lead prices, perhaps driven by the fact that Scotland yields some of the lowest borrower numbers and therefore some of the highest competition amongst advisers for new customers.

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The lowest lead prices were in Northern Ireland, where there are always more borrowers than there are advisers who want to help them. Northern Ireland experienced a 4.1% rise in the amount people wanted to borrow this month however.
As high lead numbers lower the lead price in a region, and vice versa, the North East had the second lowest prices. The North East has traditionally always supplied the highest numbers of leads, increasingly followed by the Midlands. The North East supplied almost 13.5% of all leads this month, while, combined, the two northern regions and the Midlands provided more than a third at 38%.

Just two other regions had figures that stood out from the norm: Wales saw a 4.7% rise in the amount people wanted to borrow, while the Midlands saw a drop of a similar size. The Midlands has seen rises in requested borrowing amounts every month since December, so this drop seems like a slight correction, taking borrowing amounts back to the levels they were at the end of last year.

Wales, on the other hand, experienced a huge 18% drop in the amounts borrowers wanted advice on in January, so the last two months’ incremental rises have gone a little way to make up the difference in that fall.

As confidence in the housing market returns slowly, we expect to see borrowing amounts inch up month by month, with the odd dip for a month, or in a couple of regions. Adviser demand for new clients appears to be growing steadily as mortgages become easier to place and advisers target new mortgage borrowers for the cross sales opportunities.

The abolishment of Stamp Duty for first-time buyers on houses under £250,000 will mean both more first time buyers looking for advice and more advisers targeting these clients.

Borrower number are likely to dip slightly over Easter, although it isn’t as significant as the drop for Christmas as it is still a popular time of year for people to spring clean their finances or feel motivated to look for a new home so I expect to see them pickup again by the end of April.

Grant Stevens is managing director of Leadbay