ROOF Blog

Gross mortgage lending totalled an estimated £12.5 billion in September, a 2 per cent rise from the £12.3 billion in August but down 27 per cent from September 2008, according to new data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Behind the modest improvement from August to September and the relative stability of recent months is the balance between the types of lending taking place - there has been a pick-up in house purchase activity, but this is off-set by the decline in remortgaging. Paul Samter, CML economist observed: ‘House buying activity is running at considerably higher levels than around the turn of the year. However, it remains weak on any historic comparison and is unlikely to rise much further given the constraints the lending community faces and a still difficult economic backdrop.’