‘Official figures from the Bank of England awaiting release are expected to show a 10% fall in mortgage approvals, down 19% from their peak in January. “The introduction of new mortgage regulations at the end of April has taken some of the steam out of housing market activity.
Buyer interest has also come off its highs, though it remains to be seen whether this is lasting,” explains IHS Global Insight’s Howard Archer. The Sunday Times notes the increase in borrowers looking to challenger banks due to high street names taking an increasingly “draconian approach to lending”.
Separately, the paper examines recent changes made to Help to Buy which narrow options for home buyers including: Nationwide restricting Help to Buy equity loans to first-time buyers, Halifax making the scheme unavailable via brokers, and the government instating a 4.5x salary cap limitation.’
Source: The Sunday Times