April sees drop in mortgage lending

The mortgage lending figures for April in the UK have suffered a fall according to recently released figures. The figures were released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders earlier this week, and showed that in April gross mortgage lending fell by 12 percent.

The figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed that the level of mortgage lending for the month reached a value of £10.2 billion. This marks the lowest level of mortgage lending in the UK during April for ten years according to reports. The figure reflected a £1.4 billion drop compared to the previous month, with mortgage lending levels for the month of March coming in at £11.6 billion.

The level of mortgage lending this April was also down by 1 percent compared to April of last year, when the mortgage and property markets were still severely depressed. Officials from the Council of Mortgage Lenders said that there were expectations of a slight decline in mortgage lending for the month of April due to a number of factors, including when the Easter holiday fell this year.

However, despite the discouraging figures the Council of Mortgage Lenders has said that the mortgage market is still on target at present to reach its aim of lending £150 billion in mortgage loans over the course of the year.

Whilst the mortgage market has seen some level of recovery over recent months there are still a number of problems facing groups such as first time buyers. Many are still being expected to raise a fairly sizeable deposit by lenders, which is hampering their efforts to get onto the property ladder, and these demands are being made due to the financial difficulties that are still affecting some of the banks themselves as they try to recover from the financial crisis.

Tags: property markets, financial crisis, council of mortgage lenders, mortgage, Mortgage loan, Business Finance, gross mortgage lending, finance