January Sees Slump in Mortgage Agreements

The Council of Mortgage Lenders’ (CML) new figures have reiterated the fact that January has seen a downturn in the property market.

Mortgages agreed with house buyers fell by a huge 49% from December, this is thought to be due to the December rush to beat the reintroduction of the old stamp duty thresholds.  There was only 32000 loans approved in the month of January.

 The figures for first-time buyers fell even further, by a huge 54%.  It has been a very slow start to the year according to Michael Coogan, General Director of CML.

"Lending volumes in January were low, but we had predicted this would happen due to the end of the stamp duty holiday distorting December's figures," he said.

"When December and January data are taken together, they show little change in underlying market conditions compared with recent months, with activity still slow but well up on the lows of a year earlier.

"We expect lending over the coming months to remain weak," he added.

It is also thought that the slump will last for over a month as expectations are that when the figures are released for February, they will only be slightly better than January, still staying relatively low though.

Posted at 01:05PM Mar 12, 2010 by Marc Stenton in Mortgages & Housing Market  |  Comments[0]