Bank of England data published on July 1 showed UK net mortgage approvals for house purchase, a leading indicator of future secured lending, edged down to 60,000 in May from 60,800 in April. Remortgaging approvals fell to 29,600 from 29,900.
Net borrowing of mortgage debt by households slowed to £1.2 billion from £2.2 billion, while gross mortgage lending increased to £22.2 billion from £21.1 billion and gross repayments rose to £20.5 billion from £19.0 billion.
Separate Bank of England figures showed the effective interest rate on new secured loans to households rose to 4.79% in May from 4.74% in April, and the effective rate on the outstanding stock of secured loans increased to 3.61% from 3.57%.
The Bank’s remortgaging approvals measure covers only switches to a different lender and does not include internal product transfers with an existing lender.