IMLA members remain realistic not optimistic

Members of the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA) predict that growth will remain slow for the next 12 months in a challenging market.

They think gross mortgage lending for 2012 will be £131 billion, which is £10 billion lower than 2011 gross lending figure of£141 billion.

Buy-to-let has higher expectations as IMLA predicts £15.1 billion gross lending by the end of 2012, up from £14 billion in 2011. In addition, lenders expect the highest proportion of intermediary business in 2012 to be in buy-to-let.

Almost three-quarters (73%) of members think the Bank Base rate will still be at 0.5% in June 2013.

They expect growth to remain sluggish with GDP only at 0.55% in 12 months, although the range of views was between 0%-1.25%.

Lenders also expect house prices to remain more or less static with an average price prediction of £160,000.

Peter Williams, IMLA executive director, commented: “Given recent developments in the economy it is no surprise that our member predictions remain subdued.

“In addition, in the first half of the year there have been a number of announcements that may impact the mortgage market including the government’s ‘funding for lending’ announcement and the ECON vote on the European Mortgage Directive.

“Whilst the outlook may seem bad it is important to emphasise that the survey does not indicate a further downturn, but rather a flat market for a period. Given all the uncertainty, we must watch developments closely to see which way the market will move.

“The Council of Mortgage Lender’s gross lending figures show a 24% increase in May but they also acknowledge that the market is broadly flat and suggest ‘it may be the autumn before we can more accurately gauge the state of the market’.”