Mortgage lending in January reaches £13.8 billion

According to the British Bankers Association, data has revealed that gross mortgage lending is up by 6.3% and net borrowing was 2.4% higher than January last year reaching £13.8bn. It also showed that remortgaging approvals were up by 15.7%

The report discovered that although house purchase approvals were down by 2.5% compared to the previous January, it was still above the monthly average in 2016, hitting 44,657

Eric Leenders, BBA Managing Director for Retail Banking, said: “The new year saw homeowners make the most of historically low interest rates by taking advantage of competitive remortgage offers. Nearly 29,000 of these deals were approved last month – 16% higher than January last year.”

Brian Murphy, Head of Lending at Mortgage Advice Bureau, had this to say: “House purchase approval numbers, whilst 2.5% lower than in January 2016, need to be viewed in context, given that the first quarter of 2016 was exceptionally busy and should be considered in the context that twelve months ago many landlords and second home borrowers had brought forward intended transactions following the Autumn Statement of 2015 to avoid the rise in SDLT at the end of March 2016.

Homeowners are continuing to take advantage of ultra-low mortgage rates with remortgaging approvals up 15.7% when compared with January 2016, which could be as a result of homeowners being keen to fix what is potentially their biggest element of committed monthly expenditure, in a period of rising inflation and wider economic uncertainty.

You can read the full article published in Property Reporter 

Image Credit Helloquence on Unsplash

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