Home Owner Loan Numbers At Two Year Low
The number of people who are being approved for a new home owner loan or mortgage has fallen to the lowest level in the past two years, according to the latest figures from the Bank of England, with a total drop in the overall amount of loans of £0.1 billion throughout the month of December last year.
The overall growth rate for new loan over a twelve month period also fell, from 0.8 per cent in November, to just 0.7 per cent in December. The total number of loans which were approved for house purchase was 42,563, which was significantly less than the six month average figure of 47,433.
Even the number of people switching their home owner loan through a remortgage fell during December, despite the fact that this area of loan business has been seeing a steady increase in recent months.
Within the total lending figures, secured loans and home owner loans fell by £0.3 billion during December, which is a large change when compared with the six month average figure of an increase of £0.6 billion per month.
Although the reduction in loan numbers throughout December can, in part, be attributed to the particularly bad weather, these figures still show a distinct lack of confidence in the housing and home owner loan markets from bother lenders and potential borrowers.
However, consumer credit lending, which includes things like unsecured loans and credit card lending, actually saw an increase in new lending throughout December, with an increase of £0.2 billion, which is well above the six month average.
Within this figure, credit card borrowing stayed relatively stagnant, whilst borrowing on unsecured loans and other forms of credit increased by £0.1 billion, which could possibly be accounted for by a rush of consumers spending for Christmas.
