{"id":10874,"date":"2018-02-01T11:50:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T11:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyassociation.co.uk\/?p=10874"},"modified":"2023-10-06T09:22:23","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T08:22:23","slug":"lenders-offer-attractive-deals-combat-decline-new-mortgage-approvals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/news\/lenders-offer-attractive-deals-combat-decline-new-mortgage-approvals\/","title":{"rendered":"Lenders offer attractive deals to combat decline in new mortgage approvals"},"content":{"rendered":"

British banks approved the fewest new mortgages in December since April 2013, according to figures released by UK Finance. Only 36,115 home loans were approved by mortgage lenders, a drop of 19% on November\u2019s home loan approval of 39,007.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The figures are largely considered to be a result of an early rush to push borrowing through before November\u2019s base rate rise<\/a>, coupled with the falling real-term wages. Chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, Samuel Tombs, said the latest data showed mortgage approvals<\/a> “falling off a cliff”.<\/p>\n

According to Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to the EY ITEM Club, 2018 is likely to be a challenging year for the property market<\/a>. He said activity was “likely to be lacklustre as the squeeze on consumer purchasing power only gradually eases, confidence remains fragile and caution persists over engaging in major transactions”.<\/p>\n

A slower market?<\/h4>\n

However, traditionally, December is a quieter month for new mortgages and this may not be a true reflection of the market. The reduction in stamp duty for first-time buyers<\/a> only took effect in November, and it is still too early to see the impact that will have on the market.<\/p>\n

Whilst the current outlook indicates buyer caution and a slower market<\/a>, the mortgage lenders are responding with continued low rates and attractive packages<\/a> to entice new customers and first-time buyers. Skipton Building Society have launched a range of products for borrowers wanting to leave a Help to Buy mortgage, and Marks and Spencer\u2019s launched a \u00a31,000 cashback deal<\/a> for first-time buyers, with a free valuation.<\/p>\n

Eric Leenders, managing director of personal finance at UK Finance, said: \u201cDecember is traditionally a quieter month for mortgages, although the underlying trend of increased numbers of first-time buyers, supported by government initiatives such as Help to Buy, continues\u201d. On this basis, we should perhaps wait to see what the first quarter of 2018 brings?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British banks approved the fewest new mortgages in December since April 2013, according to figures released by UK Finance. Only 36,115 home loans were approved by mortgage lenders, a drop of 19% on November\u2019s home loan approval of 39,007. The figures are largely considered to be a result of an early rush to push borrowing… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3380,"featured_media":10881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[25,341],"class_list":["post-10874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tax-mortgages-money","tag-mortgages","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6097099,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10874\/revisions\/6097099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}