The latest figures to be released by the Bank of England show that the net total from mortgage borrowing during October rose, but there was a small drop in the number of mortgage approvals.
The net figure from mortgage borrowing hit £4.3 billion for that month, which represents an increase of £0.4 billion on the total for the previous month. The flow from month to month has stayed comparatively level recently, ensuring that the rate of growth for the year is 3.2%, a figure which is more or less the same as those for the previous three years.
While all of this is good news for the industry, there was dip in the number of mortgage loans for home buyers that were approved during October. This may be a slight cause for concern, as it can help to predict what is going to happen in terms of lending in the near future, but the total of 65,000 for the month is only a slight drop in comparison to that of the last two years.
It was also balanced by the news that the number of remortgage loan approvals reached 51,000 for October, which is a rise. Speaking to Mortgage Finance Gazette about the figures, Andrew Montlake of the Coreco brokers said that the lower rate of home buying mortgage approvals in October was to be expected given how tricky the month as a whole had been.
The overall healthy state of the industry is why so many people are undergoing CeMAP training to become brokers.
