BSA: Mortgage lending on the up

Date:Friday 1st May 2009
Author: Max Freedman

The amount of mortgage lending by building societies in the UK rose last month, new figures suggest.

According to the Building Societies Association (BSA), such organisations completed lending worth £1.54 billion in March.

This represented an increase from the £742 million the previous month.

Director-general of the organisation Adrian Coles said: "As might be expected at this time of year, mortgage approvals in March rose sharply. Even adjusting for seasonal influences, this is the highest figure since November."

However, while this may suggest a slight recovery in the housing market, the outlook over the next few months remains "very challenging", he added.

Figures produced by the Council of Mortgage Lenders last month suggested that gross mortgage lending in the UK over the first three months of this year totalled around £33 billion.

This was a fall of nearly a third (20 per cent) compared with the same period last year.