BBA: Mortgage outlook weaker
October 26, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Mortgages
New mortgage lending is down indicating a weaker outlook for the mortgage market.
According to the BBA, house purchase approvals last month were down 27 per cent on last year’s figure for September and were also down 21 per cent in value.
The gross mortgage lending value for September this year was at £18.5 billion, just three per cent up on the same time in 2006.
Also, last month 160,879 mortgages were approved which was down 12.1 per cent on the previous year.
David Dooks, BBA director of statistics, commented: “Lower amounts of new mortgage lending and fewer loans approved for house purchase signal a weaker outlook for the mortgage market, particularly if loan supply reduces in the aftermath of the recent financial markets difficulties and borrowing costs remain at current levels.”
He added that card spending was down in September as were repayment rates and this resulted in a rise in net borrowing although in all, demand for unsecured borrowing was low.
The BBA is a trade association for UK financial and banking services and has members in 60 different countries.
March mortgage approvals down
May 1, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Mortgages
It seems that we may be beginning to see demand for mortgages weakening.
New figures from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) show that the number of mortgage approvals in March fell compared to the same period last year.
In total, 198,000 mortgages were approved, signalling a fall of eight per cent on the same figures for March 2006.
However, the average mortgage amount rose by 12 per cent in 2007, reaching £150,800.
“Strong levels of gross mortgage lending reflect homebuyers and homeowners seeking out fixed rate mortgages as protection against rising interest rates,” said David Dooks, director of statistics at the BBA.
He went on to say that the drop on mortgage approvals indicated that “weaker demand is starting to emerge”.
The BBA’s figures also show that credit card borrowing fell by £0.1 billion in March, signalling a three per cent drop compared to figures for the same month in 2006.
Borrowing on personal loans and overdrafts remained pretty constant.
