Mortgage approvals in August Monday, 21st September 2009

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML)is predictings that the value of new home loans approved for buyers in August is likely to be less than the previous month.

They predict that gross mortgage lending totalled £12.6bn in August, less than the revised total of £14.5bn in July.

Lending levels had actually stabilised during the summer, and they say that the decline was to be expected due to seasonal factors.In July, CML data showed it was the first month since the boom in the housing market started to fizzle out more than two years ago that the number and value of new mortgage loans grew.

It is now hoped that with signs of a recovery in wholesale funding markets, there are hopes of a gradual easing in constraints on the supply of funding. However maybe
any significant pick-up in lending is unlikely. With there being prudent demand from consumers and a prudent approach to lending criteria form the lenders, this is likely to mean that the market remains slow.

However it is now hoped that despite the dip in August the residential market is very slowly returning to a normal state with more affordable mortgage products becoming available.