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Latest BoE mortgage data, your reaction

ended 29. March 2023

The latest mortgage lending data from the Bank of England has just been published.

  • Net mortgage lending to individuals decreased from £2.0 billion to £0.7 billion in February. Looking at the period prior to the onset of Covid-19 in March 2020, this is the lowest level of net borrowing since April 2016.
  • Net mortgage approvals for house purchases increased to 43,500 in February, from 39,600 in January. The first monthly increase since August 2022.

Jot down your thoughts on these figures and let us know: 

  1. How do you see the mortgage market right now?
  2. How do you see the mortgage market developing as we approach the second quarter?

8 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Riz Malik
Independent Financial Adviser at R3 Wealth
Green shoots should appear in the property and mortgage markets by the end of the next quarter. Aside from interest rates, those looking for a change of scenery will inevitably contribute to an increase in stock levels and a plethora of options. We might even see estate agents' elusive grins make a comeback. The only hurdle will come if the lenders put the brakes on lending. However, given recent mortgage rate cuts in the face of base rate increases, it appears that there is still an insatiable appetite to lend. Indeed, brighter days are on their way.
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Rohit Kohli
Director at The Mortgage Stop
The market is mixed at the moment. BTL is currently very quiet - we've got investors wanting to buy but, with affordability still tough with lenders and more regulatory changes on the horizon, many feel that there is still too much uncertainty to push the button on their investment. From a residential perspective, we're very much seeing the market bounce back compared to December and January it's not quite as busy as the first quarter of 2022 but there are signs we're getting there. If we can just get some stability in the economic environment I think confidence will come back quickly. I think we're seeing this with lenders cutting rates despite last week's BoE increase, they want to lend which can only be a good think for the country as a whole.
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Editor
Mike Staton
Director at Staton Mortgages
The mortgage market is relatively steady at the moment as expected. I think we have seen the BOE rate peak now at 4.25% and anticipate further reductions on fixed rates as we have already seen with some major lenders this week. I do think the rates will start to touch late 3s and early 4% on 2 year fixed rates before the year is out.
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Samuel Gee
Director at Manning Gee Investments Limited
Amidst the chaos of the Autumn jump in rates in the aftermath of Kwasi's Budget, many people had to put their house purchase and remortgage plans on hold. However, as the new normal of higher interest rates settles in and rates begin to stabilise, we are now seeing a resurgence of interest in new, or newer home ownership. People are embracing the reality of higher long-term costs, and those who were considering remortgaging are seizing the opportunity to do something that might be better than staying on an SVR.
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Gary Bush
Financial Adviser at MortgageShop.com
The lower mortgage lending figure is no surprise after the mini-budget chaos and subsequent lenders' knee-jerk reactions by ceasing to lend for a period - this was always going to be the case sadly. Grown-up thinking needs to be employed by lenders to avoid affecting consumers' financial confidence in this way unnecessarily. The mortgage market is looking positive and, pending no more government-created nightmares, we should see a reasonable improvement during quarter 2 and ongoing for 2023.
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Graham Cox
Director at Bridging Hub
A 65% fall in net mortgage lending for February is staggering. These numbers don't lie and paint a picture of a housing market on its knees.

Far too many vendors still have unrealistic selling price expectations and will end up chasing the market down. Last year's prices are gone. Buyers meanwhile are biding their time, unable or unwilling to overpay for overpriced property in a falling market. As more property comes on the market in the Spring, the pace of house price falls will accelerate.
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Joe Stallard
Director and Advisor at House and Holiday Home Mortgages
There's an atmosphere of caution in the mortgage market right now. Everyone's waiting and watching. Making the next move or the right investment purchase is, in many ways, a matter of awareness and animal intuition...

On the ground, we're still seeing a demand for advice -- despite rates being where they are and the cost of living causing people to think carefully.
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Gary Boakes
Director at Verve Financial
The mortgage market now feels stable, there are no major fluctuations in rates, if feels like a Norma market again just with higher rates. I fully expect this to be the case now until we see a the base rate reducing which hopefully will be later this year or early next year when we will hopefully see rates about 1% lower than they currently are.
The numbers are worrying and it certainly is a lot quieter than previously with estate agents and mortgage brokers now having to work harder and be smarter about attracting new business.