The Bank of England has painted a picture of an active mortgage lending market during the third quarter of this year.
Yesterday, it reported that the proportion of lending for house purchase was 70.1% – 2.4% up on the second quarter of this year.
Advances for house purchase stood at £43.5bn, 8.5% higher than for the same period last year.
The proportion of lending to first-time buyers was almost static at around 20%, but the value of lending rose by £0.6bn to £12.7bn year on year.
Remortgaging continued to account for about a quarter of all loans, although falling from 26.2% in the second quarter to 24.1% in the third.
The proportion of buy-to-let lending decreased from the second quarter from 15.8% to 15.6%, but was up by 1.3% on the third quarter of last year.
Loans to buy-to-let borrowers, including remortgages, were at their highest number since the first quarter of 2009.
Furthermore, the buy-to-let balance outstanding represented 14.5% of total residential balances – the highest proportion since the Bank of England started publishing its quarterly mortgage statistics in 2007.
Comments (1)
Since George Osborne announced tax hikes for 2nd home ownership we have seen a frenzy of buyer activity, many purchasers keen to complete on a purchase by 31st March 2016 to save themselves thousands of pounds in Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT). I find it remarkable that anyone owning a 2nd home should be penalised in this way, do we not remember that having our annuities in the hands of others, saw peoples pensions go through the floor during the credit crisis.
I for one would rather my pension and children’s inheritance be in my own hands rather than those of a casino banker type. Are all 2nd homeowners wealthy NO, will the new tax perturb the very wealthy unlikely, will it lead to higher rents most likely. Can the government really make such sweeping changes without consulting those in the industry, the housing market is not something to be constantly tinkered with, it requires foresight not knee jerk reaction.