Mortgage numbers hit two-year high

Mortgage approvals hit the highest level for two years in November
12 April 2012

The number of mortgages approved for house purchase reached its highest level for two years during November, figures show.

A total of 44,713 loans were approved for people buying a home during the month, 152% above the low point reached in November last year, according to the British Bankers' Association.

But the group cautioned that the huge year-on-year jump reflected the weakness of the market in 2008, rather than a much stronger market now, although it added that approvals were slightly higher than they were two years ago.

There was also a slight increase in net mortgage lending, which strips out redemptions and repayments, with this rising to £3.3 billion in November, its highest level since February.

But the number of loans approved for people remortgaging remained subdued, as the low base rate meant many people were better off staying on their lenders' standard variable rate when their existing deal came to an end.

There were only 22,360 remortgage loans in the pipeline during November, two-thirds lower than in the same month of 2007.

The number of people withdrawing equity from their property is also running at around half the level seen two years ago.

Meanwhile, consumers continued to focus on building up their savings and paying down unsecured debt.

Credit card spending was slightly higher during November than in October at £5.8 billion, but down on the level seen 12 months earlier.

Once repayments were taking into account, outstanding debt rose by £217 million, in line with the recent six-month average.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in