John Charcol says weather affected February mortgage lending figures

Date:Thursday 15th April 2010
Author: Max Freedman

The mortgage lending figures for February are affected by the bad weather that the UK suffered during January, an expert from John Charcol has stated.

Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at the firm, made his remarks following the news that the number of mortgage approvals in February went up by 12 per cent compared to the previous month and 49 per cent on a year-on-year basis, according to statistics from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

He explained that there would have been a significant reduction in the number of people heading out house-hunting in the first month of the year as a result of the treacherous conditions, which means that February may have benefitted from some of January's prospective borrowers.

"With January so badly affected by weather in the first two weeks, people who were going out looking for property had generally not been doing so much of that in the first two weeks of January," stated Mr Boulger.