The amount of mortgage approvals in Jan this year rose from around 38,000 to 39,230 which is a 4% rise on the previous month and according to the figures released by the Bank of England, the rise in mortgage approvals might continue going up.
The sum of all the mortgages approved by the banks in Jan came to £4.6 billion which is an increase on the previous month of £900 million, however, this is only a small amount compared to the estimated monthly average of £1.6 billion or even as large as the rise in approvals we saw in February of £1.5 billion, although, the total sum of money approved through mortgages in Jan, £4.6 billion, was well over the 6 month average.
There was also good news regarding the building societies, the overall amount of mortgages approved by building societies rose to £1,542m which is double the amount approved in February.
And finally, there were also figures released by the British Bankers Association regarding lending rates to small businesses. They stated that their figures showed that lending to small businesses had risen by £271 million in Jan.This has had a knock on effect of reducing small business insurance premiums for many companies. However, the news releaased by the Treasury Committee say that small businesses are finding it even harder to borrow money that they need.
Although these figures may sound good, mortgage lending is more important that mortgage approvals, the mortgage lending in Jan rose by £800 million which is not as much as expected and a lot less than the monthly average of £1.2 billion.
Although all of the above figure releases are good news for the economy and the housing market, there are still concerns that house prices could slump again in the next few months, and even if they didn’t, the economy is still a very fragile area.
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