Mortgage Informer

Mortgage lending in the United Kingdom rose 24 percent in March from month-earlier levels, or 3 percent above March 2009, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said Monday.

It marked a strong ending to a downbeat first quarter, when gross lending of 29.5 billion pounds ($45 billion) was 24 percent lower than the previous quarter and 9 percent lower than than the same period a year earlier.

Comparisons are skewed by a rush of buying at the end of 2009 to beat a tax increase, and a consequent drop in activity immediately after the new year.

U.K. mortgage approvals matched the lowest since at least 1999 in October as the financial crisis intensified, prompting banks to hoard money and curb loans.

Lenders granted 32,000 loans for house purchase, down from 33,000 in September, the Bank of England said today in London. The result was the same as the median forecast of 30 economists in a Bloomberg News survey, and matched the figure for August, the lowest since the data began almost a decade ago.

Mortgage lending into the property market in effect collapsed during May, according to the latest figures from the Bank of England. The number of mortgages approved for house purchase fell to just 42,000 – the lowest figure recorded by the Bank since it began collecting this information 15 years ago.

Economists described the numbers as “alarming”, “terrible” and “absolutely dire”. Lending is now 70 per cent below the peak registered in November 2006; 60 per cent down on May last year; and 27 per cent down on April. Mortgage lending is running at about half the level seen in the last housing recession in the early 1990s.