"The new year saw homeowners make the most of historically low interest rates by taking advantage of competitive remortgage offers."
Net mortgage borrowing was 2.4% higher in January than a year ago and remortgaging approvals were 15.7% higher.
House purchase approval numbers of 44,657 were 2.5% lower than in January 2016 but 2.5% higher than December and above the 2016 monthly average of 41,320.
Eric Leenders, BBA Managing Director for Retail Banking, said: “The new year saw homeowners make the most of historically low interest rates by taking advantage of competitive remortgage offers. Nearly 29,000 of these deals were approved last month – 16% higher than January last year.”
Brian Murphy, Head of Lending at Mortgage Advice Bureau, commented: “House purchase approval numbers, whilst 2.5% lower than in January 2016, need to be viewed in context, given that the first quarter of 2016 was exceptionally busy and should be considered in the context that twelve months ago many landlords and second home borrowers had brought forward intended transactions following the Autumn Statement of 2015 to avoid the rise in SDLT at the end of March 2016.
"Homeowners are continuing to take advantage of ultra-low mortgage rates with remortgaging approvals up 15.7% when compared with January 2016, which could be as a result of homeowners being keen to fix what is potentially their biggest element of committed monthly expenditure, in a period of rising inflation and wider economic uncertainty."
