UK Mortgage Lending Up 6.4%

Mortgage lending in Britain rose to its second highest level since April 2008 in August, new figures have shown. The figures, by UK Finance, showed total gross lending rose to £24.2 billion ($32.5 billion) in August, up 6.4% from last month, Yahoo reported. The figure is the highest since March 2016, when an impending hike to stamp duty on buy to let homes sent buyers into a frenzy, pushing transaction levels to a record high. Before that, the last time mortgage lending rose above £24 billion was in April 2008, when it hit £25.3 billion—before rapidly declining as the financial crisis set in. The number of mortgages approved for house purchase rose to 41,807 in August, stronger than the monthly average of 41,133 over the past six months and 11% higher than the same time last year, UK Finance said. Meanwhile, overall borrowing from banks slowed to 1.5% in August, down from 1.9% in July.