We have reported over the course of the past few months on how activity in the housing and home owner loan markets has continued to increase, as a growing number of individuals move house and more first time buyers take out their first loan in order to get themselves on to the property ladder.

According to the latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), this trend is continuing, with an increase in loan sales activity during the month of October with a total of £13.5 billion being offered in new home owner loans, showing an increase of 5 per cent over the previous month.

Although these figures are encouraging, they are still 27 per cent lower than they were at the same time last year, when there was £18.5 billion offered in new loans. The CML have said that the 5 per cent increase in October is typical at this time of year and was expected, as individuals buy a house before Christmas, but it also now expects new loan activity to slow down towards the end of the year.

However, the CML has maintained its forecast of £141 billion worth of new home owner loans and mortgages for the whole of this year.

Paul Samter of the CML commented on the figures, he said “There has been a significant change in the type of lending taking place from the start of the year. House purchase activity has picked up significantly. In contrast, remortgaging has dropped to decade low levels as many borrowers have little incentive to refinance when they move on to low reversionary rates and others find themselves unable to do so due to equity constraints. The coming months are likely to be dominated by seasonal factors rather than underlying change.”