Many homeowners across the UK continue to capitalise on the record-low rates currently available on the market. So should you, too?
The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) revealed that remortgage approvals have increased by 2% year-on-year in March. And the lift in remortgaging is only set to continue as Yorkshire Building Society have recently announced a new record-low mortgage rate of 0.89%.
March saw 24,657 remortgage approvals and a total of 41,061 home purchase approvals, which indicates a drop of 2.8% on the previous month.
BBA, however, said the figures were close enough to the six-month average of 41,600.
Furthermore, the BBA also revealed that gross mortgage borrowing was at £13.2bn, which was overall in line with previous months.
When looking at these figures one thing needs to be kept in mind: last year’s increase in stamp duty, which came into effect on April 1 2016 skewed home sales figures as many investors rushed to buy in March 2016 to beat the new surcharge.
The BBA said:
“March last year was sharply inflated by purchases of buy-to-let and second homes ahead of the April rise in stamp duty, so year-on-year comparison is not appropriate.”
With this, it might take a couple of months for the market to return to levels that are worthwhile comparing.
