UK Mortgage Rates and Mortgage Approvals – June 2010 Update

Today I present two regular charts that could provide an indication of what is happening in the housing market. The first shows the monthly interest rate of UK resident banks and building societies sterling standard variable rate mortgage to households (not seasonally adjusted) and highlights that for this data set rates remain at near record lows at 3.99% for May 2010 (actual low was 3.82% in April 2009). Compare this with the retail price index (RPI) of 5.3% and the average mortgage is better than free money with a negative real interest rate.

The second chart shows mortgage approvals. Non-seasonally adjusted rates are falling month on month by 7.4% to 53,650 for April 2010 however as the chart shows this is a very noisy and erratic data set. Seasonally adjusted shows mortgage approvals rising by 1.9% to 48,871 for April 2010. This is also up from one year ago where approvals were 45,546. So with better than free money on offer, one dataset suggests mortgage approvals are starting to rise where the other suggests they are falling. One thing is certain though the numbers are still well below the long term average of 91,287.

As always do your own research.