Mortgage lending has 'encouraging' rise

Date:Thursday 13th August 2009
Author: Susanna Kavka

Figures showing a rise in mortgage lending are "encouraging", according to an adviser.

Ray Boulger of John Charcol was responding to data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), which showed that there had been a 23 per cent rise in the number of home purchase loans from May to June.

He said he had not anticipated such a large jump.

In addition, Mr Boulger said he had not expected the increase in remortgaging activity, as he thought people would need to go on to standard variable rates when their current deals expired.

"The figures on both purchase and remortgage are pleasantly surprising," he said.

According to the CML's statistics, there were 36,000 house purchase loans made in May and 45,000 in June.

Despite the increase, this was still below half of the average number of June loans observed over the past seven years.

Remortgages rose in number by 13 per cent between May and June, though the figure for the second quarter was less than the same period in 2008.