According to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) latest mortgage lending and administration return statistics, is also up on pre-pandemic levels, with gross lending in the second quarter of 2019 pegged at £66bn.
The FCA added that it was the highest level of mortgage lending since the third quarter of 2007 when gross mortgage lending came to around £102bn.
The figures show that this quarter is the fifth consecutive quarter of growth, with gross mortgage lending increasing since the second quarter of last year.
The report also showed that the value of new mortgage commitments was £85.6bn, which is up from £34.4bn in the same quarter last year.
However, the report said that it was £2.1bn lower than the peak reached in the fourth quarter of last year of £87.7bn.
High LTV segment continues to grow
The share of mortgages advanced in the second quarter with loan to value (LTV) exceeding 75 per cent came to 39.6 per cent, which is up from 36.5 per cent in the same quarter last year.
The proportion of loans between 75 and 90 per cent LTV increased from 31.6 per cent last year, to 37.6 per cent this year. It is also up from 35.7 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
Loans over 90 per cent LTV grew slightly, up 0.9 per cent from the first quarter to two per cent. However, this is down from 4.9 per cent in the second quarter of last year.
Home movers and first-time buyer growth strong but buy-to-let stalls
Buy-to-let (BTL) gross advances, which covers house purchase, remortgage and further advance, came to 11.3 per cent in the second quarter, which is down 3.1 per cent compared to the second quarter of last year.
It is also down from the first quarter, where BTL gross advances were around 11.7 per cent.
Within house purchases, which made up 66.4 per cent of gross advances, lending to first-time buyers was 6.5 per cent higher than the same quarter last year at 24.7 per cent. It is also 2.8 per cent higher compared to the first quarter of this year.
Home movers’ share also grew, coming to 41.7 per cent, which is up from 23.4 per cent in the second quarter of last year. However, it is 0.5 per cent lower than the first quarter of this year.
Of the advances for owner occupiers, which was around 88 per cent of advances, the share for remortgages fell 21.3 per cent from the same quarter last year to 16.6 per cent and is the lowest since 2007.
