BoE comment: True shape of mortgage market coming into focus

John Phillips, national operations director at Just Mortgages said: “Following on from the rare net repayment in July, mortgage borrowing returned to closer to normal in August as the stamp duty holiday begins to wind down.

“With just a few hours left in before stamp duty returns fully, from now we will begin to get a clearer picture of the state of the housing market in the UK. And the outlook is bright. Despite a slight reduction in activity from the huge peaks earlier in the year, there is still plenty of people looking to move.

“The market is still characterised by an imbalance between buyers and sellers, with the former considerably out-weighing the latter, and this dynamic is unlikely to shift anytime soon.

“It will be interesting to see in the next Budget whether there will be new policies announced to drive up the number of properties being built, as the current figure is way below the needed 300,000 per year.”

Published: 29 September 2021