The Bank reported a total of 122,681 approvals for house purchases, remortgages and other forms of loan from MFIs during January 2017, reflecting a modest rise of 0.3% on the previous month.
This growth came despite a 6.7% decline in secured lending approvals from specialist finance providers, which fell from 6,964 in December 2016 to 6,498 in January of this year.
These figures mark the second consecutive month that specialist lending approvals have fallen, following an 11.1% decrease between November and December 2016.
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Remortgaging witnessed the sharpest decline, with a 9.7% drop in approvals from specialist lenders in January contrasting with the figures for MFIs, which remained almost unchanged from the previous month.
Jonathan Sealey, CEO of Hope Capital, commented: “Although remortgaging was down slightly in January compared with December, this is to be expected given the anticipated seasonal lull.
“Borrowers are increasingly looking for new deals and many are keen to fix in a period of rising inflation and lingering economic uncertainty.
“It is therefore likely that we’ll see a stronger uptick in remortgage activity in the coming months, and fears of a rate rise could help to drive remortgaging to new levels in 2017.”
All figures have been seasonally adjusted.
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