Rics calls for more funds for mortgage market

Date:Monday 2nd March 2009
Author: Susanna Kavka

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has made another call for increased funding to be put into the mortgage market.

Rics was responding to information from the Bank of England regarding mortgage approvals, which showed that mortgage lending dropped by 60 per cent in January.

Numbers of new buyers remained the same as they had been the previous month and 31,000 mortgages were approved for house purchase.

The figure for January 2008 was 70,000.

In a statement on the issue, Rics acknowledged that there will be an effect from the increased lending that Northern Rock and the Royal Bank of Scotland have said they will be providing.

But it said this would comprise an increase in finance of just ten per cent on last year's levels.

"This demonstrates the need for the government to make speedy progress with its plans to introduce the guarantee scheme for mortgage backed securities as announced in the pre-Budget report," Rics stated.