Allaying housing market myths

There can be no doubt that the Bank of England’s flagship Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) has proved a success by stimulating the supply of mortgages and has help drive down lending rates in the mortgage market. Before FLS, two and five-year fixed-rate deals had been about 1 per cent higher than they are now and in less than a year after launch in July 2012, the UK central bank lent £17.6bn to 28 banks at interest rates as low as 0.75 per cent. In total, just over £23bn has been lent under the scheme since it started 17 months ago. In turn, monthly mortgage approval rates are now a third higher than three years ago. In fact, in the third quarter of 2013, there were 170,700 house purchase loans advanced, worth a total of £27.1bn, which is the highest quarterly figure since the fourth quarter of 2007. But those quarterly lending figures are telling, since it is clear that the FLS element is still only a small, though not insignificant portion, of monthly lending by banks and building societies.