Lending to first-time buyers is highest for nearly nine years

There were more house purchase loans to first-time buyers than to home movers for a third month in a row during June.

Lending to first-timers was the highest for nearly nine years – meaning that levels have returned to what they were before the housing market crash.

On a monthly basis, the number of loans to first-time buyers was up 24%, and on a yearly basis up 17%.

There were 34,330 house purchase loans to first-time buyers in June, compared with 33,900 to home movers, says the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Both figures were up from the previous month, which were 27,600 and 26,400 respectively.

In June 2015 there were 29,400 house purchase loans to first-time buyers and 33,800 to home movers.

The CML figures also show the hit to the buy-to-let mortgage market since the Stamp Duty surcharge kicked in on April 1.

In the first quarter of this year, there were 49,300 house purchase loans to buy-to-let borrowers, which crashed down to 14,700 purchase loans to buy-to-let borrowers in the second quarter – a drop of 47.3%.

Paul Smee, director general of the CML, said: “First-time buyers are continuing to drive house purchase lending, outperforming home movers for the third month running. More loans were advanced to them in June than at any time since August 2007.

“Buy-to-let house purchase activity remains lower than before the Stamp Duty changes at the beginning of April, but showed a large month-on-month increase.

“As might be expected, buy-to-let remortgage seems to have been less affected by the changes and remains consistent with lending last year.”

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3 Comments

  1. James

    The one positive of the stamp duty increase for investment buyers. Vendors (understandably) would always choose those with larger deposits/cash and first time buyers often found themselves sidelined.

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  2. Mark Connelly

    In the first quarter of this year, there were 49,300 house purchase loans to buy-to-let borrowers, which crashed down to 14,700 purchase loans to buy-to-let borrowers in the second quarter – a drop of 47.3%.

    Someone’s sums are a bit off. A drop from 49,300 to 14,700 is a drop of 70.2%

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  3. Woodentop

    If he has it right it just shows that average Joe & family don’t want to move or can’t afford to. My money is on the latter. As usual a lot of data isn’t in view, are the FTB due to incentives, new builds which stop chains moving etc. and have home movers spent all their money on home improvements/extensions so don’t need to. What’s the average now to move home, it used to be 6 to 7 years. I don’t see many even considering moving after 10 years today, the norm of “moving up the ladder” isn’t there like it used to be.

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