The proportion of lending for house purchase in the third quarter of the year was 70.1%, approximately 2.4 percentage points higher than in Q2 2015, the Bank of England has reported.
The amount of gross advances for house purchase was 8.5% higher than Q3 2014 at £43.5 billion.
The proportion of lending to first time buyers decreased in the quarter by 0.3 percentage points to 20.4% in Q3 2015. The value of residential loans advanced to first time buyers (FTB) increased by £0.6 billion from Q3 2014 to £12.7 billion in Q3 2015.
The buy-to-let proportion of lending decreased from 15.8% in Q2 2015 to 15.6% in Q3 2015 but increased by 1.3% from Q3 2014. Advances (which include buy-to-let remortgages) increased over the past year from £8.0 billion advanced in Q3 2014 to £9.7 billion in Q3 2015. This is the highest level of advances since Q1 2009. Buy-to-let balances outstanding were £174 billion in Q3 2015, which, at 14.5% of total residential balances is the highest proportion since the series began in 2007.
The proportion of remortgages decreased from 26.2% in Q2 2015 to 24.1% in Q3 2015. Meanwhile, the proportion of other new lending decreased from 3.6% in Q2 2015 to 3.4% in Q3 2015.
The proportion of gross advances at a loan-to-value (LTV) of over 90% decreased by 0.7 percentage points over the quarter to 2.8% in Q3 2015. The proportion of gross advances to borrowers with a single income multiple of more than 4.00x increased by 0.9 percentage points to 10.3% in Q3 2015.
Peter Rollings, CEO of Marsh & Parsons, said: “Mortgage lending continued to press on during the penultimate quarter of the year, and we can expect to see borrowing advance further after the Chancellor’s stimuli unveiled in the Autumn Statement. With £15 billion of funding for housing measures taking prominence in his agenda, this will have given the green light to a queue of first-time buyers – particularly in London, where there will be a designated Help to Buy scheme to reflect the accelerated house price growth in the capital, and the extra booster needed to help buyers onto the ladder.
“First-time buyers have already been making tracks in Q3, and in London we’ve seen this as part of wider demographic shift as domestic players and mortgage buyers become more prevalent in the housing market, while overseas investors take a temporary step back to digest the higher stamp duty payable on top-end purchases. But proportionally, across the country, remortgaging activity has been taking up a larger chunk of the lending pie recently, as existing homeowners try to build up their defences ahead of an expected interest rate rise in 2016. But the rankings may change in the run up to April’s stamp duty increase for second homes, and buy-to-let lending is likely to rev up quickly, as investors act before the finishing flag for current conditions.”