New research suggests that re-mortgaging grew substantially in September.
The Bank of England’s latest data reveals that there were 47,598 re-mortgage approvals recorded in September – which commentators have been keen to point out is the highest monthly figure on record for 2017 so far.
Month-on-month, re-mortgaging approvals were up by 2.8 per cent in September, as homeowners ‘flocked’ to re-mortgage amid fears of an interest rate hike just around the corner.
Jeremy Duncombe, Director of Legal & General Mortgage Club, said that “thousands” were keen to “secure their rates” before the Bank of England moved to hike its base rate by 0.25 per cent on Thursday 2 November at its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting – a decision which had been widely predicted beforehand.
Despite strong performance for the re-mortgage market, however, mortgage approvals for house purchases fell to 66,232 over the same period studied – making September approvals the lowest on record in three months.
Jeremy Leaf, former Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Chairman, said: “Once more these official figures show, if proof were needed, that the housing market is continuing to display resilience in the face of political and economic uncertainty and not least the threat of an interest rate rise.”
Meanwhile, Jonathan Harris, Director at mortgage broker Anderson Harris, said that the re-mortgaging market should “continue to thrive this autumn.”