October saw the number and value of loans for remortgaging and for house purchases rise in comparison with a month ago and with the same period in 2016, according to non-seasonally adjusted data published by UK Finance.
Capital and interest payments for new loans remain near record lows for both home movers and first-time buyers, reflecting a competitive mortgage marketplace.
June Deasy, UK Finance’s head of mortgage policy, said: “Over the last year, the number of loans for remortgaging have been at record levels; this trend looks set to continue further as we head towards the end of 2017 and borrowers seek to take advantage of low interest rates.
“Mortgage repayments as a proportion of income still remain at or close to their historic low point, and despite the recent base rate rise we can expect monthly mortgage payments to remain affordable for the vast majority of borrowers.”
First-time buyers borrowed £5.1 billion, up 2% on the previous month and 13.3% higher than in October 2016. There were 31,700 loans awarded, up 3.6% on October and up 10.5% on a year ago.
Combined capital and interest payments as a percentage of income remained stable at 17.2%, down 0.1 percentage points on September 2017 and down 0.4 percentage points compared with a year ago. The loan to value ratio rose slightly, with an increase of 0.6 percentage points on September.
Home movers borrowed £7 billion, up 2.9% on September and 18.6% higher year-on-year There were 33,300 home movers, and increase of 5% on September and a substantial 15.6% on October 2016.
Average combined capital and interest payments also remained stable at 17.5% of income, unchanged on the same month last year. The loan to income ratio rose slightly to 3.41, up from 3.38 a month earlier.
Home-owner remortgage activity totalled £7.3 billion, up 15.9% on September and 17.7% higher than a year ago. That corresponded to 41,100 remortgages, an increase of 16.1% on September and a 12-month change of 16.4%.
Buy-to-let remortgaging totalled £2.4 billion, up 20% on September 2017 and October 2016. Remortgaging now accounts for just over 70% of all buy-to-let lending. There were 14,700 buy-to-let remortgages, up 20.5% on last month – and a 21.5% annual increase.
Gross buy-to-let lending for house purchasers totalled £900 million, unchanged on September 2017 and October 2016. That equated to 6,600 mortgages.