Home-owners borrowed £8.1bn for house purchases in April, down 40 per cent month-on-month and 4 per cent year-on-year, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).
First-time buyers borrowed £3.9bn, down 11 per cent on March, but up 15 per cent on April last year, while home movers borrowed £4.3bn in April, down 53 per cent on March and 14 per cent compared with a year ago.
However, remortgage activity totalled £6bn, up by a quarter on March and up 40 per cent compared with a year ago.
Landlords borrowed £2.5bn, down 65 per cent month-on-month and 7 per cent year-on-year. This came to 16,100 loans in total, down 64 per cent compared to March and down 10 per cent compared to April 2015.
Paul Smee, director general of the CML, said there was a sense of calm after the storm, as lending eased back following the significant rises in activity in March as borrowers looked to beat the second property stamp duty deadline.
Number of loans for house purchase and remortgage:
| House purchase | Remortgage | |||
| FTBs | Movers | Buy-to-let | Home owners | Buy-to-let |
April 2015 | 23,500 | 26,200 | 8,600 | 26,700 | 9,100 |
March 2016 | 27,600 | 41,300 | 28,700 | 28,200 | 15,800 |
April 2016 | 25,100 | 22,200 | 4,200 | 34,800 | 11,700 |
1 month change | -9.1% | -46.2% | -85.4% | +23.4% | -25.9% |
12 month change | +6.8% | -15.3% | -51.2% | +30.3% | +28.6% |
Gross buy-to-let (BTL) lending dipped as expected, as landlords rushed to beat the 1 April deadline, leading to the lowest volume of loans for BTL lending since June 2014.
Adviser view
Simon Checkley, managing director of London-based mortgage brokers Private Finance, said: “We are fairly confident in predicting that we will continue to see attractively priced products available from as little as the 1.14 per cent around today. Furthermore, we believe that regardless of the outcome of next week’s referendum, the economy is currently strong enough to ensure that activity levels remain buoyant as we move into the second half of the year.”
peter.walker@ft.com
