House purchase lending up 45% in March - CML

This marked the ninth consecutive month of year-on-year growth for house purchase lending and the 23rd consecutive monthly fall for remortgaging. In March, 45,000 loans for house purchase were advanced worth £6.3bn, up 25% in volume on February, while 28,000 remortgage loans worth £3.5bn were made, up 23% in volume. However, remortgage numbers remain weak and are expected to continue as such for some time. For Q1, the number of house purchase loans fell from 171,000 worth £23.3bn in Q4 2009 to 112,000 worth £16.1bn. Remortgage loans in Q1 also dropped from 89,000 in the last quarter o...