New home loan approvals fall 57% by volume

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has reported that the temporary rise in the stamp duty threshold, to £175,000, benefited 51% of homebuyers during September.

In the same month last year, when the threshold stood at £125,000, only 22% of homebuyers escaped the tax.

The CML also notes that in September, the number of mortgages approved for house purchases fell 15% on August and 57% year-on-year, to 35,000.

The total value of new loans amounted to £5 billion, down 15% on the previous month and less than half the value of September 2007.

The average first-time buyer mortgage stood at £104,500, down from £108,000 in August.

Only 13,400 first-time buyers entered the market in September (down from 28,200 a year earlier) and the average first-time buyer income multiple declined to 3.18 in September, its lowest level since March 2006.

Loans to home movers totalled 21,500 in volume and £3.4 billion in value in September, representing a 59% decline in volume and 61% fall in value, year-on-year.

The average income multiple for a home mover stood at 2.82, down from 3.02 a year ago.

Finally, in September, 62,000 remortgages were approved, worth £8.5 billion.

The figures represent a decline on August of 15% for volume and 16% for value. However, both volume and value achieved around two-thirds of the levels recorded a year earlier.

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