Mortgage completions soared in April - CML

However, activity is still very low compared to an average of 88,000 finalised deals in April over the last seven years. Elsewhere, gross mortgage lending in April slipped to £10.5bn from £11.5bn in March. Lending criteria continued to edge down with a typical home mover putting down a 33% deposit and borrowing 2.63 times their income, compared with 30% and 2.69 in March. There were 22,100 loans to home movers worth £3.1 billion, compared with 30,600 loans worth £5 billion in April last year. The research revealed there were 13,500 loans to first-time buyers worth £1.4bn, compared w...