The latest report by the Council of Mortgage Lenders released yesterday, on March 20t suggests that mortgage lending remained stable in February 2016.
The total value of home loans given out to borrowers last month stood at 10.7 billion pounds, which compares to 10.65 billion in January and 9.4 billion in February 2016. The year-on-year growth in mortgage lending, thus, constituted 14%.
Commenting on the findings, Bob Pannell, chief economist at the Council of Mortgage Lenders, said: “The launch of the NewBuy scheme is an important addition to lenders’ toolkit in addressing the various needs of would be borrowers. The scheme has the potential to offset the dip in first time buyer activity that the end of the stamp duty concession on 24 March may produce.”
However, not all industry specialists are so positive about the UK mortgage market. For instance, Richard Sexton of e.surv, highlighted that even though it is “the seventh straight month of growth in year on year gross lending, but that doesn’t mean it is seventh heaven yet for the mortgage market.”