December mortgage lending highest on record

The CML’s latest data also shows gross lending in 2005 totalled £287.5bn, down only 1% on the record £291.2bn in 2004. While lending typically declines towards the end of the year, the fall in December was less than previous years. Michael Coogan, director general of the CML, says: “The commentators who thought lending would fall sharply in 2005 based in the performance of the first half of the year were wrong. “Confidence in the housing market was supported by the realisation that short-term interest rates had peaked and the downward trend in fixed-term rates throughout much of the y...