First-time buyer lending up 25 per cent in June compared to a year ago - CML

They took out 68,200 loans, up 26 per cent on May and 8 per cent on June 2015.

First-time buyers borrowed £5.5 billion, up 28 per cent on May and 25 per cent on June last year.

This equated to 34,300 loans, up 24 per cent month-on-month and 17 per cent year-on-year.

Home movers borrowed £6.9 billion, up 33 per cent on May and up 5 per cent compared to a year ago.

This represented 33,900 loans, up 28 per cent month-on-month and up 0.3 per cent on June 2015.

Remortgage activity totalled £5.6 billion, up 8 per cent on May and 6 per cent compared to a year ago.

This came to 32,400 loans, up 4 per cent month-on-month but down 2 per cent compared to a year ago.

Landlords borrowed £2.9 billion, up 12 per cent month-on-month but down 15 per cent year-on-year. This came to 18,300 loans in total, up 8 per cent compared to May and 17 per cent compared to June 2015.

The CML figures also revealed that the second quarter of 2016 saw home-owners borrow £30 billion for house purchase, down 2 per cent quarter-on-quarter and 7 per cent year-on-year.

They took out 169,600 loans, up 4 per cent on the first quarter and 3 per cent on the same quarter in 2015.

Paul Smee, director general of the CML, said: “These figures reveal growth in house purchase activity and in particular for first-time buyers. As ever, there is uncertainty and it will take more time and patience to understand how the market will evolve in the current environment – these figures predominantly cover activity in the run-up to the referendum. We still believe that the mortgage market is well capitalised, resilient and open for business, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

“First-time buyers are continuing to drive house purchase lending, outperforming home movers for the third month running. More loans were advanced to them in June than at anytime since August 2007. Buy-to-let house purchase activity remains lower than before the stamp duty changes at the beginning of April, but showed a large month-on-month increase. As might be expected, buy-to-let remortgage seems to have been less affected by the changes and remains consistent with lending last year.”