The number of mortgages approved for house purchase fell in August for the first time in 10 months, new figures showed today, in a sign of the continued fragility of the property market.
The Bank of England said there were 52,317 approvals for home buyers last month, down slightly from 52,404 in July. The figure had been climbing since November last year. A spate of recent data had suggested an upturn in the battered property market. Hometrack, the property data company, revealed the annual drop in house prices in England and Wales had slowed to its lowest level in a year. The annual rate at which prices dropped in September eased to 5.6 per cent from 6.7 per cent in August, the figures showed. Last month, Nationwide's monthly index revealed that property prices rose in August for the fourth consecutive month and are increasing at their fastest rate for two-and-a-half years. But economists have warned about the continued fragility of the market and other data has been less positive. Last week, HM Revenue & Customs reported a drop in the number of property sales in August while the Council of Mortgage Lenders revealed that new mortgage lending in August fell from July. Howard Archer, chief UK and European Economist at IHS Global Insight, said: "While housing market activity has been lifted by the still significant fall in house prices from their 2007 peak levels and low mortgage interest rates, the upside continues to be limited by unfavourable economic fundamentals and tight credit conditions. "At 52,317 mortgage approvals for home purchases were still well below the average monthly level of 93,400 reported by the Bank of England since 1993." Today's Bank of England data showed that total mortgage lending climbed to a 6-month high of £1.0 billion in August. They also revealed that consumers paid down unsecured debt at the fastest rate since records began in 1993 as concerns about the economy and job losses continued to weigh heavily. There was a fresh fall in the number of people remortgaging with the number of homeowners switching to a better deal dropping by 14 per cent compared with July to 29,059. -- Posted By anjos to Business Blog at 9/29/2009 04:57:00 AM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
