UK mortgage market surged in June

Fresh statistics suggest the UK’s mortgage market has been boosted again, with approvals for home lending up month on month and year on year during June.

The latest mortgage monitor from residential chartered surveyors, e.surv, discovered that some parts of the market are performing better than others. Compared to June 2016, the latest data shows that the number of loans are now up by 1.4% overall.

In addition, the amount of loans granted to buyers with a small deposit has fallen month on month to 18.5% of all loans in June, compared to the 21.3% recorded in the previous month and a high of 21.5% recorded in April. This is still better than the most recent low recorded in December 2016, when individuals with small deposits represented just 16.1% of the market.

In contrast, large deposit buyers with a deposit of 60% or more accounted for 34.5% of the total home loan market this month – up from 33.9% in May. Despite this, those with large deposits have accounted for less than 35% of the total market for the fifth month in a row.

Meanwhile, mid-market borrowers witnessed their share of approvals reach 47% of mortgages approved in June, up from 44.8% last month.

Richard Sexton, Director of e.surv, said: “With the whole market moving this means that home owners are able to move up the ladder, or to downsize if they need to. This also creates room at the bottom for first time buyers to jump onto the ladder in future months.”

The study also shows that a mortgage application would be approved for first-time buyers and those with small deposits in Yorkshire more than anywhere else in the UK. Some 28.1% of all loans in the region were made to small deposit buyers during June 2017.

Yorkshire was one of the main regions to have more than a quarter of loans given to small deposit borrowers, closely followed by North West at 26.3% and Northern Ireland at 25.7%.

At the other end of the scale, London was the area with the lowest proportion of small deposit loans, dropping from 17.9% in May to 14.3% in June.

Sexton concluded: “While the number of small deposit buyers being approved for mortgages has fallen, this should not be seen as negative. As those properties up the ladder change hands, this will free up those homes at the bottom of the market for first-time buyers in future months. This allows the cycle of growth to continue.”

Those with more cash or equity to put down dominated London. People with large deposits received 40.5% of all mortgage loans in June, higher than anywhere else in the UK. Other regions with similar results were the South East at 39.2% and the South and South Wales at 37.2%.