According to figures released yesterday, both mortgage lending and house prices are on the rise.
The monthly figures from the UK’s largest building society, Nationwide’s Property Index, showed the average house price is now £161,183, which shows an increase of 0.3% last month. The last rise in house prices was in May last year.
Figures from the Bank of England reported net mortgage lending for January stands at £1.8 billion – making it the highest monthly figure reported since February last year. Following on from the previous monthly figure, this is a notable change considering December’s figure showed a contraction of £268 million.
Importantly, the number of approved mortgages also increased by 7% up to 45,723 mortgages.
Of course, these figures are still much lower than economists would like to see in order for the housing market to once again be considered stable. Economists are said to want to see figures of around 70k approved mortgages per month before they will rest assured the market is fully recovered. Despite this, these figures are much better than the figures we have been seeing since the credit crunch of 2008.
In spite of these figures, a Nationwide representative still said they believe the housing market for this year will remain steady but house owners across the UK and those looking to take CeMAP courses to become mortgage advisors will be encouraged by this good news.
