Mortgage approvals down 15% in March

All forms of mortgage lending showed a fall in approvals rates, including remortgages, indicating some consumers may be finding it difficult to refinance. Overall, the number of mortgages approved for house purchase and remortgage fell from 113,144 to 95,920 in March. The number of approvals for equity withdrawal and other purposes fell by 29.6% compared with last year to 33,419. Mortgages for home purchase are suffering particularly, down 46.2% since last year to 35,417 and less than half the peak of nearly 80,000 seen in late 2006. The amount of gross lending was £16.6bn in March, d...