Loans for both house purchase and remortgage dipped in September, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has confirmed. The fall was driven by a drop in home movers.
The drop had been predicted, and last week mortgage valuation firm e.surv forecast that lending will be shown to have fallen again in October.
According to CML figures, 48,200 loans were taken out for house purchase in September, worth £7.1bn, down 2% by number and 5% by value compared to August.
The figure included 18,200 loans to first-time buyers, a rise of 1% on August and up 5% on September of last year. In contrast, there were just 30,100 loans to home movers in September, down from 31,400 in August.
The overall home purchase loan figures were up 3% by number and value compared with September 2010.
There were 34,200 remortgage loans advanced, worth £4.3bn. This represented a 1% decline on August (with no change in value) but was a 25% increase (26% by value) on a year ago.
In the third quarter overall, there were 144,200 loans (worth £21.6bn) for house purchase, up 16% by volume and 21% by value from the second quarter.
However, this was 6% lower than activity levels in the same period last year.
In contrast, remortgaging from July to September saw both quarterly and annual growth, with 100,300 remortgage loans (worth £12.6bn) taken out, representing a 23% rise in volume compared to the third quarter of 2010 (24% by value).
