Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008

Times headline based on figures below.

Times: Mortgage lending figures give some hope

A total of 22,448 loans for house purchase, rather than remortgaging, were approved by banks during July. Although this was still a drastic 65 per cent lower than levels a year earlier, it marked a small rise from the record low of 22,369 set in June, according to the British Bankers' Association.

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 12:33 AM (1471 views) Add Comment

17 Comments

1. gardeniadotnet said...

down 65% year on year

up 0.1% month on month

correct me if I'm wrong.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 12:43AM Report Comment
 

2. drewster said...

Wow, two articles from the same paper reporting on the same figures but with a completely different spin:

"British mortgage approvals plunge by 65%!!!" (but up 0.3% in the last month)
"Mortgage lending figures give some hope!!!" (but down 65% in one year)

The former is from the Business section, the latter from the Property section. Does it never rain in Times Property land?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 01:03AM Report Comment
 

3. quiet guy said...

"up 0.1% month on month"

Well I make it up by about 0.35% so things are three and a half times better than you think! (sarcasm)

What goes on in the mind of people who write this stuff I wonder.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 02:00AM Report Comment
 

4. Rupert Bear said...

The figures are misleading

Assuming the banks only write mortgages mon-fri, then the daily rate actually fell by over 8%

Damn lies and statistics!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 02:08AM Report Comment
 

5. sold out said...

i expect we shall see many reports of a similar vein over the next couple of years,just as happened before in the early 90's.Their glimmer of hope is so laughable and pathetic,highlighting miniscule changes in % terms only reinforces the dire state of the morgage market.Desperate.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 07:23AM Report Comment
 

6. cornishman said...

22,369 loans in June. 22,448 in July. A rise of 0.35%?

Except that there were 23 working days in July compared with 21 in June. So there were 1065 approvals/day in June and 976 approvals/day in July.

Oh dear, by my reckoning, that's a FALL in mortgage approvals of 8.4% from one month to the next...

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 08:17AM Report Comment
 

7. Chang Chang said...

Hurray for the extra 69 new mortgages in the whole country last month!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 08:18AM Report Comment
 

8. cornishman said...

- and - these are the numbers of mortgage APPROVALS. How many of these will fail to be taken up as sales fall through and chains collapse?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 08:23AM Report Comment
 

9. mark wadsworth said...

It does rain in Times Property Land, the Saturday edition doesn't have a property section any more.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 08:53AM Report Comment
 

10. Davedribble2 said...

So 79 more people took out a mortgage to buy a house in one month compared to the previous month.
Yes, I can see that's a clear indication that the bottom has been reached and it's evidence of the start of the upwards trend and the green shoots of recovery.
Not.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 09:13AM Report Comment
 

11. beartil2010 said...

Perhaps this is the 'bottom' in terms of decreasing numbers of sales. What these pundits don't appreciate is if sales stay static at this number, the market will continue to dive like that 14yr old bloke form the olympics.

Here's the American situation, in case anyone thought their market was improving from all this 'sentiment' nonsense: (Taken from Patrick.net link:)

http://seekingalpha.com/article/92579-home-sales-true-inventory-no-good-news?source=patrick.net

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 09:34AM Report Comment
 

12. maddison said...

Is a mortgage approval when the mortgage is offered, contracts exchanged or sale completed? If it is contracts exchanged then August will absolutely dire due to Treasury ham fisted comments on stamp duty...

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 09:59AM Report Comment
 

13. brian t said...

So people find it harder to get mortgages? Good - it was too easy in recent years. This so-called "downturn" is more like normality, if it means that lenders are expecting borrowers to meet sensible financial criteria, such as < 4x loan-to-income.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:07AM Report Comment
 

14. shipbuilder said...

More laughable nonsense to fill the column inches.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:10AM Report Comment
 

15. mountain goat said...

The Times is hopeless, this is exactly what to expect from them based on their hp ramping history.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:15AM Report Comment
 

16. denzil said...

Crikey, the Times and the BBA are really clutching at straws if they regard that as an improvement.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:23AM Report Comment
 

17. icarus said...

Rupert & cornish - re number of working days - well spotted. Apart from this, did anyone ever see a graph that didn't zigzag, whether upwards or downwards?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:56AM Report Comment
 

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