Gross mortgage lending was an estimated £16.6 billion in April, some 8% higher than the previous month, according to the latest data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
It is some 36% higher than April last year when it was £12.2 billion and the highest total for an April since 2008 when it was £25.7 billion.
However, the implementation of the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) from late April has made it a little harder to interpret recent data, according to CML chief economist Bob Pannell.
‘As we have pointed out previously, there may be some disruption to the monthly pattern of activity while MMR procedures bed down. The Bank of England has signalled that macro prudential measures to limit the housing market upturn are likely in the near future, and possibly in the very near future,’ he explained.
‘Forthcoming measures will, in our estimation, be careful, calibrated, and proportionate, and designed to reinforce prudent affordability checks, rather than to apply the brakes to the housing market in a more dramatic fashion,’ he added.
However, according to David Brown, commercial director of LSL Property Services, mortgage lending measured by value is growing at a very healthy pace. ‘But for ownership levels to return to any form of pre-crisis normality, then the number of households buying a home still needs to grow for many more years. To make that reality, we need to build millions more properties, starting right now,’ he pointed out.
‘Affordability of homes will be the best measure of success for the property market and the best guarantor of sustained growth in the future. In the rental market this is already improving dramatically, with annual rent rises now just a fraction of average wage rises, showing things are moving in the right direction,’ said Brown.
‘In the same way, the Mortgage Market Review represents a healthy challenge for the property industry, as not only has it shaken up lending criteria and conditions, but also highlighted a more general weakness of household earnings,’ he concluded.
*Source: PropertyWire