UK Mortgages Fall in November

The number of mortgages advanced to people buying a home fell by 12.4% in November and was down on the same period of the previous year, figures from mortgage lenders showed, as the slowdown in the housing market continued into the winter.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said it members advanced 55,600 house purchase loans during the month, worth a total of £9.2bn. The number was 6.6% lower than in November 2013, while increased house prices over the year meant the value was down by just 1.1%.

First-time buyers continued to make up a large section of the market, accounting for 25,900 loans – down by 11.3% on October’s figure and by 3.4% on the previous year. The average loan to value of a first-time buyer mortgage was up year-on-year, at 83% compared with 80% in November 2013, however affordability was similar, with new entrants to the market typically borrowing 3.37 times their salary.

The figures cover a period before the chancellor reformed stamp duty, making the tax bill cheaper for most homebuyers, and experts have suggested that this will have boosted the market since November.

However, in November it seems the market was slowing. On Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics said UK house prices stood still during the month, while in London they fell slightly.

The CML’s data showed there was also a drop in the number of buy-to-let loans made in November, although the figure remained higher than the previous year.

A total of 17,700 buy-to-let loans worth £2.4bn were advanced, a fall of 10% in number and 11% in value on October’s figures. Of these, 8,900 were for new purchases by landlords. This figure was 11.9% lower than October’s but up 6% on the previous year. The value of the loans was £1.1bn – an increase of 10% on November 2013.

via The Guardian

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza