The Bank of England has published its first monthly breakdown of gross mortgage lending, split by purpose.
By value, the Bank reports that gross lending rose by around 12% in July to £16.7 billion, up from £14.9 billion in June and a 29% increase on last July, in line with the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ (CML) estimate last week.
Within this, on the Bank’s measure, house purchase lending rose by 11% from £9.7 billion in June to £10.8 billion in July, while remortgaging rose 16% from £4.3 billion in June to £4.9 billion in July. By number, total mortgage lending transactions rose nearly 13%, from around 108,600 in June to 122,300 in July.
The CML has welcomed the Bank of England’s move. As well as complementing the figures showing the split of approvals, which the Bank has published for many years, it means that there will be access to an earlier indication of the breakdown between house purchase, remortgage and “other” lending (such as further advances and lifetime mortgages, for example).
CML chief economist Bob Pannell said: “A monthly increase of over £1 billion in house purchase lending reinforces the picture of a housing market that is firmly in recovery mode. However, as the Governor of the Bank of England remarked just two days ago, lending levels remain well below their pre-crisis levels.
“On the remortgage side, it is only really since the start of this year that we have begun to see even any gentle recovery from historically low levels.”