Source : Business Times – 13 Oct 2009
Industry grouping sees this as sign of stabilising market
Banks in the UK approved almost a third more loans to buy homes than a year earlier in August in a sign the property market is stabilising, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said.
The number of mortgages granted rose to 52,700, 29 per cent more than in August 2008, the group said in an e-mailed statement yesterday in London. The total fell 5 per cent from July.
‘House purchase activity has revived from its moribund state at the beginning of the year,’ Paul Samter, an economist at the CML, said in the statement.
‘It will be a drawn-out recovery process with seasonal ups and downs, but house purchase activity is now on a firmer footing.’
Yesterday’s report adds to evidence that Britain is emerging from its worst recession in a generation.
Reports this month showed house prices rose in September, while the Bank of England last week stuck to its plan to buy £175 billion (S$386 billion) worth of bonds to cement the recovery and kept the benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5 per cent.
The number of people remortgaging their homes declined, the CML said.
Remortgage loans fell to 32,000 in August, down 57 per cent from a year earlier and 22 per cent from July.
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