Mortgage Approvals - What Does That Mean?

Hometrack together with other AVM (automatic valuation model) providers have given some great news to the UK mortgage industry. In a report issued a few days ago they have discovered that the number of home purchases was on the rise by a figure in excess of 15%. Meanwhile the average house price continues to fall off a cliff however it was found that the houses were sold far faster than one month previous. More good news flows from banking headquarters (Bank of England) with some very interesting stats showing mortgage approvals rising by a not so minimal margin. First quarter results are notoriously bad for mortgages it is thought that people are not submitting offers on property over the Christmas period. Couple this with interest rates and house prices sliding it is no wonder people have sat still.

Many industry leading figures have warned that these steps towards recovery could be a false positive with weak economic growth, rising unemployment and poor availability of mortgages still maintaining the headlines across the country.

Property prices in January still fell month on month being down by 0.6%, their lowest monthly fall since May last year. Which gives the impression that things are on the swing. Recent reports from Halifax, nationwide are detailing that house prices rose again so we can determining from this that we are approaching the tipping balance of the economic scales. The yearly rate of fall in the property prices is now over 10 percent which is not very good at all. Staying with a more positive tone, lending statistics of all UK Banks have shown almost that they approved 6,500 more mortgages last month compared to a half year monthly average of 30,000 mortgages sold.

Maintain these figures for the foreseeable future we could declare the horribly titled "credit crunch" over.

With the base rate is at its lowest for all of time, most homeowners with mortgages are taking full advantage of low mortgage rates, especially people who have got trackers. As a result remortgages fell by 4% in February. Should you be waiting for the rate hike before you look for a mortgage?