Gross mortgage lending reached £16.5bn in March - 21 per cent higher than February and 7 per cent above the same month last year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders estimated.
Gross mortgage lending for the first quarter of this year was therefore an estimated £44.9bn, representing a 12 per cent decrease from the last three months of 2014 and also 3 per cent down on the first quarter of 2014.
Bob Pannell, chief economist at the CML, commented that the underlying lending picture is stabilising.
“Sentiment and activity are showing early signs of improvement and should be further supported by the effects of stamp duty reform.
“We expect to see lending strengthen over the next few months, albeit from a relatively sluggish start in 2015.”
Jonathan Harris, director of mortgage broker Anderson Harris, said that as the mainstream market remains largely unaffected by the uncertainty created by the general election, while the upper end takes a pause.
“The vast majority are opting for fixed rates to give them some certainty and with lenders reducing those further in recent weeks, we are seeing the cheapest deals in a generation.”
The Bank of England also published its April lending trends report today (23 April), which stated that mortgage approvals by all UK-resident mortgage lenders for house purchase rose slightly in the three months to February compared to the previous period.
The stock of secured lending to households increased, but the pace of growth has slowed since the first half of 2014.
The document explained that overall, gross secured lending was higher in 2014 than in recent years and within this, the share of gross lending for buy-to-let purposes increased.
A hot topic at the moment, the BOE dedicated a whole section to the growing sector, noting that buy-to-let lending represented 13 per cent of total gross mortgage lending in 2014, with gross advances having recovered from its post-crisis trough though still below its 2007 peak.
Buy-to-let mortgages accounted for 15 per cent of the total outstanding value of UK-resident mortgages at the end of the fourth quarter last year, with another trend identified being that the number of advertised BTL mortgage products at loan-to-value ratios of 75 per cent and above having risen since mid-2013, although most are still below 80 per cent LTV.
Mr Harris added that buy-to-let is the real lending success story, seeing a huge improvement in terms of deals available, rates and relaxing of criteria since the downturn.
CML data published earlier this month showed that but-to-let was the only segment in the market that saw an increase in annual lending and lending values.
peter.walker@ft.com
