Mortgage Lending At Lowest For Over 30 years

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said Today that lending for house purchases and remortgaging dropped in December as the number of first-time buyers who secured loans fell to a 34-year low,

There were just 516,000 mortgages granted to house buyers, down 49% from the level seen in 2007.Last year the number of loans to first-time buyers fell by 46% to just 194,200, which was the lowest figure since the CML's records started in 1974.

And mortgages granted to people moving house dropped by more than half to 322,200

Michael Coogan, the CML's director general said "The shortage of mortgage funding and reduction in the number of active lenders has reshaped the mortgage landscape in the space of a year...This low level of transactions is insufficient for the functioning of an efficient market,"