Mortgage lending continues to increase but it’s not home buyers driving growth

Gross mortgage borrowing totalled £13.8bn in January, up 2.4% year-on-year, but it seems those remortgaging are the ones growing the market.

Figures from the British Bankers Association show there were 28,862 approvals for remortgage in January 2017, 15.7% higher year-on-year, but house purchase approvals increased just 2.5% since December 2016 to 44,657.

House purchase approvals were down 2.5% year-on-year, nevertheless still above the 2016 monthly average of 41,320.

Eric Leenders, managing director for retail banking at the BBA, said: “The new year saw home owners make the most of historically low interest rates by taking advantage of competitive re-mortgage offers.

“Nearly 29,000 of these deals were approved last month – 16% higher than January last year.”

x

Email the story to a friend



Comments are closed.

Thank you for signing up to our newsletter, we have sent you an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Additionally if you would like to create a free EYE account which allows you to comment on news stories and manage your email subscriptions please enter a password below.