According to UK Finance’s latest later life mortgage lending figures, this is an 11 per cent increase on mortgage volumes compared to 2020, and a 22 per cent increase in the value of lending.
This compared to 27 per cent increase in the value of lending for whole mortgage market in 2021.
The report said the growth in the market was partially due to the stamp duty holiday which encouraged homeowners to move and to expand their property portfolios.
Q4 lending
In Q4 there were 44,590 new mortgages, and total lending came to £26.8bn. This is a 2.6 per cent fall in volume compared to Q3 and a fall in 3.6 per cent compared to Q4 2020.
The report said the slight fall was due to the stamp duty holiday ending in September as borrowers had completed their purchases earlier in the year to take advantage of savings.
Within this, the most popular products completed were buy-to-let purchase and remortgages with 13,930 sold, followed by lifetime mortgages with 10,860 sold, then homeowner remortgages with 9,880 sold and homeowner house purchases with 8,890 sold.
The number of lifetime mortgages sold was up by 7.5 per cent on Q3.
Around 45 per cent of borrowers were aged between 55 and 59, and 24 per cent were aged between 60 and 64. The remaining are split roughly equally between 65 and 69, and 70 and over.
According to UK Finance, lifetime mortgage volumes have “remained broadly stable” since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and there has been a “substantial rise” in activity since 2016. This was attributed to innovations in lifetime products allowing increasing flexibility and borrowers having more available equity.
