Mortgage advances on the up

Mortgages advanced in October this year returned to levels not seen since December 2007, with around 55,300 loans taken out during the month.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said the figure was an increase of 43 per cent compared with the previous year, and is more than double the lowest number of 23,000, seen in January this year.

There were also a third more first-time buyers in October than in the previous year, with 19,700 first homes bought with a mortgage. The average deposit remained at 25 per cent of the value of a property.

First-time buyers were lent a average of 3.08 times their pay, which is slightly lower than in previous months when the figure has been rising and it seemed lenders were being less cautious.

However, the remortgage market continued to struggle during October, with only 33,000 people switching to a new deal. That was 52 per cent less than the same month last year and the second lowest figure since CML began collecting the data in 2002.

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