LONDON (Reuters) – British lenders approved the highest number of mortgages in over 13 years in October, Bank of England data showed on Monday, suggesting no let-up yet in a post-coronavirus lockdown bounce-back in the country’s housing market.
Mortgage approvals for house purchase hit 97,532, up from 92,091 in September and higher than a median forecast of just under 84,500 in a Reuters poll of economists.
Net consumer lending fell by 590 million pounds on the month after a slightly bigger fall a month earlier, representing a 5.6% annual decline in lending, the biggest such drop since monthly records began in 1994.
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by William Schomberg)
