"Buyers are stuffing their pockets while they can, with the proportion of high loan-to-income loans higher than at any time since 2007."
The Bank's Mortgage Lenders and Administrators Return (MLAR) statistics are aggregated from the returns from around 340 regulated mortgage lenders and administrators, providing data on their mortgage lending activities.
The data shows that proportion of high loan to income lending remained at 46.9% in Q4, its highest value since the series began in 2007.
The outstanding value of all residential mortgage loans rose by 3.3% to £1,442 billion over the year, with advances up 5.5% to £72.9 billion.
The value of new mortgage commitments remained strong at £68 billion, an annual rise of 4.6%.
Remortgage lending rose 1.4% to take a 31.1% market share.
The percentage of lending to home movers fell 0.9 percentage points ober the year to 29.7% of gross advances. First-time buyer and buy-to-let lending remained broadly unchanged at 21.2% and 12.5% respectively.
The value of outstanding balances with arrears fell slightly in the quarter following a rise in Q3.
Keith Haggart, managing director at Responsible Lending, commented: “Buyers are stuffing their pockets while they can, with the proportion of high loan-to-income loans higher than at any time since 2007.
“Low interest rates are responsible for this, and cheap borrowing continues to trump economic outlook when it comes to borrowers’ appetite to forge ahead.
“Remortgages are taking an increasing slice of the pie and that’s to be expected because we already know transaction volumes remain on the floor by historic standards.
“Volume of sales will have to improve before this trend moves back in the other direction but it is owner-occupiers whose activity remains sluggish. First-time buyers have not been deterred from the market at all. They are going to be on the ladder for longer and clearly believe property is still a rock solid investment over the long term.”
