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Mortgage lending increases 3.7 per cent to £22.3bn

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  • 24/10/2019
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Mortgage lending increases 3.7 per cent to £22.3bn
Gross mortgage lending across the residential market in September 2019 reached £22.3bn, 3.7 per cent higher than in the same month last year.

 

The main high street banks approved 85,880 mortgages, taking a £15.1bn share of the total ing figure, the UK Finance update for September showed. 

This represented a 15.8 per cent increase on last year’s mortgage lending from the main high street banks. 

Overall, mortgage approvals for home purchases were 13.5 per cent higher, remortgage approvals were 23.4 per cent higher and approvals for other secured borrowing were 8.5 per cent higher than in September 2018. 

 

An improvement on weak figures

Mike Scott, chief property analyst at Yopa, said while the figures were a positive sign for the housing market, most of the increase was down to two factors. 

He said: “First, September 2018 was an unusually weak month for mortgage approvals, so part of the increase simply reflects a recovery from that brief blip in the data.” 

Last September gross mortgage lending amounted to £21.5bn, down 1.2 per cent from the year before.

“And second, a number of non-high street lenders have withdrawn from the mortgage market over the past year, and so the total share of the mortgage market represented by the main high street banks, whose figures are the only ones included in this report, has obviously increased,” he added. 

Jeremy Leaf, north London estate agent and a former RICS residential chairman, said the figures looked “remarkably good” at first glance but added: “When you look more closely it is clear that the market was particularly flat this time last year, which is giving an unrealistic shine to this September’s numbers.” 

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