Rics: Mortgage lenders' deposit requests causing difficulty

Date:Tuesday 2nd December 2008
Author: Max Freedman

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has responded to the latest mortgage approval statistics from the Bank of England (BoE).

Rics said that the property market will continue to stagnate unless mortgage lenders ease their criteria.

It noted that first-time buyers and homeowners are both suffering due to the "sizeable deposits" requested by mortgage lenders and called on the BoE to reduce its rates to try to stimulate the market.

Rics also observed that the mortgage market is not yet seeing benefits from the drops in interest rates and inter-bank lending.

According to the BoE data, mortgage lending fell by close to 70 per cent in October, with net lending on homes at £459 million.

It was the second lowest figure recorded since 1993, when statistics were first gathered in this format.

There were 33,000 new mortgages in September, a figure which dropped to 32,000 the next month.

At the end of 2007, the monthly statistic had been 72,000.