Mortgage market 'is returning to normality'

Date:Friday 28th November 2008
Author: Rachel Fletcher

The mortgage market is "returning to something more approaching normality", according to a mortgage website.

Barney McCarthy, editor of YourMortgage.co.uk, acknowledged that it is harder to secure a mortgage now but said that this means there will be fewer cases of people not being able to make their payments.

He explained that while prices are lower, mortgage lenders require bigger deposits and are more reluctant to lend.

Mr McCarthy said that in the past two years, the mortgage market has been "almost too good to be true" and warned that problems are likely to continue for "another year or so".

But he was optimistic about recovery.

Gross mortgage lending in October totalled £18.7 billion, according to figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

This demonstrated a 44 per cent drop than the figure in October 2007, which was £33.4 billion, although it was seven per cent more than the £17.5 billion lent in September 2008.