MORTGAGE approvals for house purchase have plummeted in the last 12 months as a result of a flat housing market and the credit crunch.
Only 43,870 mortgages were approved for buyers in February, a 33 per cent drop on a year ago, according to the latest figures from the British Bankers' Association (BBA).
The value of mortgages approved for movers fell to £7 billion last month,
30 per cent lower than in February 2007 and down on the recent six-month average of £7.4bn.
Remortaging gave the BBA's figures a boost with just over 72,000 loans for people remortgaging approved during the month.While this was down on January's figure, it was 5.5 per cent higher than in February last year.
Net lending rose to £5.6bn in February, its highest level since September last year.
David Dooks, BBA's director of statistics, said: "In an environment of tightening lending criteria, remortgaging, either to fix, re-fix, or reduce borrowing costs has been a clear influence on mortgage data in the first two months of this year."
Simon Rubinsohn, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' chief economist, said: "With lenders scaling back on loan-to-value ratios, we expect a further drop in mortgage equity withdrawal."
The full article contains 216 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
