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Bank of England mortgage approvals Dec 22

ended 31. January 2023

It's all going off tomorrow. After the Nationwide HPI at 07:00, the Bank of England is publishing its mortgage approvals statistics for December. I imagine they dropped sharply after the omnishambles that was the mini-Budget. Anyway, a few Qs for you.

  • What was December like for you on the mortgage front? Busy? Dead? So so?
  • Fixed rates have been dropping steadily in Jan. Is that boosting buyer sentiment?
  • What are the main themes you're seeing in the mortgage world right now? E.g. is the focus shifting slowly back to fixed rates after trackers (with no ERCs) soared in popularity for a while?

Any other interesting insights into what's happening in the mortgage market right now, chuck them down. I'll probably pin you if you can get 'You can't beat a bit of Bully!' into your response.

8 responses from the Newspage community

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Joe Stallard
Director and Advisor at House and Holiday Home Mortgages
In our experience, the meteor that was the mini-Budget has not destroyed planet mortgage as many said it would. Yes, rates rose sharply after the mini-Budget but things started to improve once that hapless administration was removed. December was a record for us as far as mortgage approvals are concerned and that level of activity has continued through into January. The property market isn't as quiet as some make it out to be.
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Independent Financial Adviser at Mather and Murray Financial
Confidence in the market is pretty low and the number of mortgage approvals shows this. Look on Rightmove and you’ll see property listings drying up. Only those that are overvalued remain. Although the listing prices are more realistic than asking prices last month, there is a long way to go before buyers are tempted as we know more rate rises are coming and there's a plethora of bad economic news further down the line. House prices will fall 15% by the summer when the pain of the national finances is being fully felt. Increasing rates, recession and increasing unemployment will cause this retreat. However, when the central bank reacts by cutting rates and the Government start signalling they may relax some of their ludicrous tax increases, confidence will return and we could see out 2023 on an even keel.
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Riz Malik
Independent Financial Adviser at R3 Wealth
Those who sat on their hands in the last quarter of 2022 are now coming out to play. It was a surprise that lenders weren't quicker coming out of the gates in January with rate cuts but the increased competition we now have is supporting activity levels in the housing market. Purchase activity has been surprisingly high but the key is how long these transactions will take and what percentage will complete. I am still deciding whether to send an invoice for September to December 2022 to Downing Street for immediate payment after the mini-Budget omnishambles. However, the response may be that that period was careless but not deliberate.
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Justin Moy
Managing Director at EHF Mortgages
December continued to be a difficult month, with the uncertainty of mortgage rates and the overall economy making it difficult for both borrowers and advisers to be clear about the way forward. With the expectations of lower rates in the new year, plenty of clients were happy to wait a few weeks to see how 2023 started. And to be fair, that was a sound strategy having seen rates continue to slip towards the magic 4% figure. With Christmas now long gone, there seems to be a better expectation about the future, and that rates will be whatever they are! Buyers are being more sensible about what they are buying, and their budgets, and looking at ways to make the mortgage more affordable each month. Fixed rates are still a fair bit above tracker equivalents, but with impending base rate increases, fixed rates will inevitably win.
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Kylie-Ann Gatecliffe
Director at KAG Financial
December was quieter than usual, but January has definitely picked up the pace. We have been busy since we came back into the office, with a mixture of enquiries from first-time buyers to people seeking to remortgage. Fixed rates dropping as they are is definitely stimulating demand among people looking to move, and we are seeing trackers becoming less desirable and fixed rates once again the favourite due to the narrowing gap in pricing between fixed and tracker products.
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Gaurav Shukla
Managing Director at Home Me Mortgages
December was a little slow all round - which isn't different to other years and people get ready for Christmas and stay away from finances until January. First time buyers have come out of hiding as they are noticing fixed rate mortgages being reduced and much more appealing than October 2022.

I have noticed a shift from tracker products being the go-to to now it reverting back to fixed-rate deals. We have customers that initially wanted to lock in tracker rates, but as the competition for fixed-rate deals gets hotter, we are now changing their products to fixed rates before they are due to complete on their new mortgage.
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Gary Boakes
Director at Verve Financial
December was probably the slowest month I have seen in 10 years. Nobody was interested in doing anything and were waiting to see if rates continued to fall in January. 2-year fixed rates are now hot again and the appeal of tracker products is disappearing quickly. Despite the chaos caused by Liz Truss's mini-Budget, we have since had months of positive news of rates reducing, which has culminated in a busy January. If we hadn't had the peak in October, it would have been interesting how the market would have reacted to the rising base rate, as perception and confidence are everything in this market.
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Graham Cox
Director at Bridging Hub
Would-be buyers have cottoned onto the fact that fixed mortgage rates have been dropping steadily since 'Safe Hands' Hunt took over the reins at the Treasury. There's still interest in trackers and discount mortgages, but fixes are coming back into vogue again. December was very quiet but encouragingly, we've seen a steady influx of mortgage enquiries in January.