Mortgage approvals 'halved in January'

Emy1501

There is too much of a drop in the figures to suggest that most who would have got a mortgage in Jan moved it forward to Dec to beat the stamp duty cut off. Therefore its either down to snow or the fact that approvals are dropping off. We will see next month.

chucky

CloudCuckooLand wrote: »

worse in what way? not sure where you're heading chucky, 11k is pretty much 23% of 52k...which is perhaps coincidental as the average of those 4 months is so close to the Nov figure...

that the Jan's numbers look worse than saying it's just because of the removal of the stamp duty threshold.

the weather would have had an impact - but that much?

CloudCuckooLand

If Jan is usually quiet there shouldn't be much activity to pull forward...!

eta; I agree its not a one reason answer.

Emy1501

Having a look using property Bee for my postcode. The number of properties that went under offer in Feb is double that of Jan and this month is already double even though we are only half way through the month. if what I am see is being seen across the country then approvals should have picked up lots in Feb.

One thing interesting though is that whilst there are a similar number of properties between 0> 350K and between 350K>500K available for sale. Nearly 3 times as many properties under 350K have sold as between 350>500K. This is not in line with what was happening last year.