Mortgage Lending Continues Strong in the UK, Particularly by Building Societies

Mortgage lending data for the United Kingdom compiled by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) and the Building Societies Association (BSA) were released today. In addition to building societies, the CML includes banks and others engaged in mortgage lending to individuals. Building societies account for roughly 18% of the total mortgage lending.

Gross mortgage lending reported by the CML was 31,260 million pounds in March, 22% above February and 10% above March of 2006. A breakdown of the mortgage lending total among house purchase, remortgage and other is not yet available for March, but in view of the sharp rise in the total of some 22%, the components should obviously show good rises as well, perhaps reversing the recent down trends in mortgages for house purchase and remortgages.The total and components are shown in the first chart. Since the figures are seasonally unadjusted, the month to month rise is less meaningful than the year to year rise.

Gross advances for mortgages by the building societies (seasonally unadjusted to be comparable with the CML data) were 5,469 million pounds in March, a 30% increase over February and 30% over March 2006. In the last four month, the gap between the increases in mortgage lending by building societies and by all lenders has widened indicating that lending by building societies has been increasing faster than that by banks and other institutions.

The CML data are grossed up estimates based on a sample of lenders reflecting market size. The data since April, 2005 are based on product sales data reported to the CML; data prior to April, 2005 are taken from the Survey of Mortgage Lenders. There are differences in the methodologies and in the samples of lenders in the data before and after 2005.