Mortgage approvals increased in January according to the latest data from the Bank of England. House purchase approvals rose from 42,719 last December to 45,723. The value of these mortgages increased by 0.3bn to £6.2billion.
Earlier this week, the Nationwide revealed that house prices rose by 0.3% in February bringing the average price of a home to £161,183.
However, consumers are still cautious and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Consumer credit has now contracted at its fastest rate for more than a year as Brits concentrate on reducing their debts and the Nationwide expects the housing market to remain sluggish for the remainder of this year.
Despite the increase in mortgage approvals in January, the housing market needs between 70,000 and 80,000 approvals a month before it can be classed as stable, according to economists.
Meanwhile, 17.1% of all the mortgages advanced by building societies and mutuals last year were attributed to the Coventry Building Society. The Coventry increased its market share to 2.6% on the back of gross lending figures of £3.5bn. Its pre-tax profits also increased from £56.2 million in 2009 to £100.6 million last year.
The Coventry merged with Stroud and Swindon at the beginning of September 2010. Taking former Stroud and Swindon home loans into consideration, 0.82% of all mortgages were 2.5% or more in arrears. That’s a slight drop from the 0.93% the previous year.
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