The amount of mortgage approvals in March this year rose from around 38,000 to 39,230 which is a 4% rise on the previous month and according to the figures released by the Bank of England, the rise in mortgage approvals might continue going up.
The total cost of all the mortgages approved by the banks in March came to £4.6 billion, this is a total increase of £900 million on the previous month, however, this increase is not as large as the estimated average of £1.6 billion or even as large as the rise in approvals we saw in February of £1.5 billion, although, the total sum of money approved through mortgages in March, £4.6 billion, was much higher than the monthly average calculated from the previous 6 months figures.
There was also some good news from the building societies, the overall amount of mortgages approved by them has risen to £1,542 million compared to the previous month’s approvals of £742 million.
Finally, there were also some figures released by the British Bankers Association about lending to small businesses. Their figures showed how lending from banks to small businesses had risen by £271 million in March. However, these figures don’t line up with the messages sent out by the Treasury Committee who said that small businesses are finding it even harder to borrow the money that they need.
Although these figures may sound good, mortgage approvals in forward thinking and it’s mortgage lending that we should be looking at, the actual mortgage lending in March rose by £800 million which is not as much as anticipated and a lot less than the monthly average of £1.2 billion.
Although all of the above figure releases are good news for the economy and the housing market, there are still concerns that house prices could slump again in the next few months, and even if they didn’t, the economy is still a very fragile area.
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