Posts with tag: mortgages

The latest Mortgage Trends Update by UK Finance has been released, revealing a strong growth for remortgaging in April 2018. New homeowner mortgages are up 36% and buy to let remortgages are up 32.4%, in comparison to the same month last year.

The key data highlights from this update include:

• 26,700 new first-time buyer mortgages have been completed during April, which was 3.5% more than in the same month last year. This has resulted in £4.4bn of new lending during that month, which shows a 4.8% increase year-on-year. Average first-time buyers are 30 years old, with a gross household income of £42,000.
• Throughout the month, 25,100 new home mover mortgages were completed. This was 4.2% less than in the same year previously. £5.4bn of new lending was obtained that month, which was 3.6% down year-on-year. The average age of home movers was 39, with a gross household income of £55,000.
• 40,800 new homeowner remortgages were completed that month, showing a 36% increase to the figures of the same month last year. There has been a 44.2% increase year-on-year to remortgaging, standing at £7.5bn that month.
• 5,000 new buy to let mortgages were completed in the month, resulting in a 5.7% decrease than the same month a year earlier. This contributed to £0.7bn of lending that month, down year-on-year by 12.5%.
• Looking at buy to let remortgages completed during the month, there has been an increase of 32.4% from the same point a year earlier, bringing in a total of 14,300. By value this was £2.3bn of lending in the month, 35.3 per cent more year-on-year.

The full UK Finance analysis on the mortgage trends update is available to view here.

26,700 new first-time buyer mortgages have been completed during April, which was 3.5% more than in the same month last year.

Jackie Bennett, Director of Mortgages at UK Finance, has commented: “Remortgaging activity bounced back to strong levels in April, as both homeowners and landlords put their house in order by locking into attractive fixed-rate deals ahead of an anticipated interest rate rise.

“This spike in remortgaging was also driven by a large number of fixed-term mortgage deal rates coming to an end, combined with increased efforts by lenders to contact their customers before their deal rate expires.

“The number of first-time buyers has grown year on year, outstripping the number of home-movers. This may reflect the impact of measures such as the recent stamp duty cut and the Help to Buy scheme that are focused on getting more people onto the housing ladder.”

Lower interest rates available to buy-to-let landlords have resulted in a significant increase in remortgaging activity during the last three months. The latest Financial Adviser Confidence Tracking (FACT) Index, released by Paragon Banking Group, reveals that the amount of landlords remortgaging is approaching record levels.

Based on interviews conducted with 201 mortgage intermediaries, the index has disclosed that 52% of buy-to-let mortgage cases in the first quarter of the year were for landlords intending to remortgage. This is an increase from 29% in the corresponding period for 2015, prior to the wide-ranging tax changes being announced in the Summer Budget.

Intermediaries have reported a decrease in the proportion of mortgage applications from first-time landlords in the same period, down from 19% to 13% of the total.

Moreover, there has been a decrease in the number of landlords remortgaging to raise funds with a plant to acquire new properties. Those opting to remortgage for portfolio expansion has fallen from 39% to 22%.

These interviews have also revealed that 60% of landlords applied for remortgages with the intention of securing better interest rates, reaching a record high in the first quarter of 2018.

When questioned, only 30% had responded that they were remortgaging in order to raise capital.

John Heron, Managing Director of Mortgages at Paragon has commented: “There’s a wide range of factors contributing to the surge in landlords re-mortgaging at the moment. These include the expiry of the initial term on mortgages taken out ahead of the stamp duty changes for second properties, the expectation of rate rises on the horizon and a desire to minimise interest costs in the face of new mortgage affordability rules.

“It will be interesting to see the extent to which mortgage applications for purchases and portfolio extensions increase once these factors have played out.”