From an article titled "Mortgage lending plunges 60%" in The Metro (my emphasis):
Mortgage lending dived by more than 60% during January to just one 10th of its level 12 months ago, figures showed today. Net mortgage lending, which strips out redemptions and repayments, was £690 million during the month, down from £1.79 billion in December, according to the Bank of England. It was the second lowest monthly total recorded by the Bank began since it began to keep statistics in this format in April 1993, and represented a steep dive from the £6.91 billion lent in January last year.
Er ... shouldn't that headline read "Mortgage lending plunges 90%"?
To put that in perspective, £690 million divided by a typical advance of £100,000 equates to 6,900 purchases in the month, which is only about about five or ten per cent of the long run average number of sales/purchases per month.
UPDATE: In reply to Renaud's comment, according to Bank of England figures, non-seasonally adjusted net mortgage lending in January 2007 was £8,508 billion and in January 2008 it was £6,164 billion.
What have we wrought in the UK?
7 hours ago
2 comments:
Good, good, excellent,, excellent. (Mentally rubs hands). I love it when markets work as well as this. It is so impressive that they can sort out all the mess created by the statist bureaucracies without a politicain sticking his meddling fingers anywhere near anything. It really does warm the cockles.
The title is correct, mortgage lending plunges 60% compare to December.
The best is, you are right, to compare from January last year in order to take out seasonality, or even better to 2 or 3 years ago at the top of the market. And there it is effectively a 90% plunge
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