Graph Of The Week: Lending For House Purchase

The Bank of England published their monthly stats on lending yesterday so I thought it would be interesting to feature a graph displaying lending levels over the past few years.

Lending for house purchase was up again in July - indeed, with 50,000 approvals, July was the strongest month for lending this year and 53 per cent higher than July 2008.

As we’ve noted before, traffic to FindaProperty.com reached record levels in July, and it’s clear from these lending figures that more people managed to access finance.

However, lenders remain extremely cautious and lending is still way below the highpoint it reached in July 2007 before the credit crunch hit.

On the positive side, the graph reveals that last summer was the bottom of the lending cycle; on the negative side, lending is still being rationed.

With prices now recovering, we would hope that lenders, buoyed by huge amounts of public money, respond by easing their lending criteria.

If they don’t, there’s the very real danger that recovery will be choked off before it’s had a chance to take hold.

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