Figures just
released by the Bank of England, show that for the first half of 2016,
£128.73bn was lent by UK banks to buy UK property - impressive when you
consider only £106.7bn was lent in the first half of 2015. Even more
interesting, was that most of the difference was in Q2, as £68.12bn was lent by
UK banks in new mortgages for house purchase, which is the
highest it has been for two years. Looking locally, in Harlow last quarter, £301.1m
was loaned on CM19 properties alone!
Even
though the Bank won’t be releasing the Q3 figures until December 2016, as I
discussed a few weeks ago, HMRC have published their own preliminary data to
suggest Q3 will be even better, with a massive growth of buy-to-let landlords
to the housing market in that time frame. Fascinating, as it seems to fly in
the face of the popular narrative – that the uncertainty surrounding Brexit
would negatively impact buyer sentiment.
And it’s not
just buy-to-let landlords that seem to be flourishing. I am finding that first-time
buyers are also a lot more confident too. Low, and now negative, inflation has
had a tangible impact on household finances and first-time buyers feel more
secure in their jobs. Couple with a low interest rate environment and you have
all the ingredients for a strengthening property market. To back that up with
numbers, of the £68.12bn of mortgages lent in the Quarter (Q2), £14.9bn
was lent to first-time buyers (the highest proportion of that overall lending
for over two years at 21.99%).
What
surprised me with these figures was how close the property prices, values and
percentages were to each other. It just goes to show the combination of low mortgage
rates and a stable job market will continue to have a positive effect on the Harlow
and UK market. And that is why, while
there is undoubtedly more cautiousness in the market at present than a year or
so ago (among borrowers and mortgage companies alike) - mortgage rates are so
competitive that they are inducing people to commit to a home purchase.
It
seems the great Brexit uncertainty was over hyped, and house price growth as
well as mortgage approvals, could pick up pace into 2017.
For more thoughts on the Harlow Property Market like this ..
visit the Harlow Property Market Blog http://harlowproperty.blogspot.co.uk/