20% year-on-year surge in mortgage approvals for purchasing homes

The number of house purchase mortgage approvals has risen by 19.8 per cent over the last 12 months. 

Data from eSurv suggests this represents the highest monthly total since January 2014 – the last month when the Bank of England offered support to mortgage lenders via the Funding for Lending Scheme. 

September 2015 has seen 72,930 house purchase lending approvals, the highest since January 2014 when there were 75,691 approvals.

Since the previous month of August, which saw 71,030 house purchase approvals, this number has increased at a month-on-month pace of 2.7 per cent – taking annual growth in the number of approvals to 19.8 per cent.

September also saw the amount of small-deposit lending (to buyers with a deposit worth 15 per cent or less of their properties’ total value) increase both monthly and annually.

In the highest proportion since October 2008, small-deposit borrowers made up 18.1 per cent of overall house purchase mortgage approvals in September. This compares with 17.3 per cent of August’s total approvals.

In absolute terms there were 13,200 small-deposit house purchase loans approved in September, this is 22.5 per cent higher than in September 2014. This total is also the highest post-recession level of small-deposit mortgage lending when measured in absolute terms.