{"id":26517,"date":"2026-05-01T11:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/26517\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T11:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:51:09","slug":"uk-mortgage-approvals-soar-as-house-buyers-seek-to-avoid-higher-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/26517\/","title":{"rendered":"UK mortgage approvals soar as house buyers seek to avoid higher rates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mortgage approvals for home buyers in the UK surged to a four-month high in March, Bank of England<\/a> figures reveal. This coincides with a new record for average house prices<\/a> across the nation.<\/p>\n

Some 63,531 mortgage approvals for house purchases were recorded last month, marking the highest total since November 2025, the Bank\u2019s Money<\/a> and Credit report stated.<\/p>\n

It surpassed the monthly average of around 63,200 approvals over the previous six months.<\/p>\n

Approvals for remortgaging, which only capture remortgaging with a different lender, also increased, reaching 51,300 in March from 41,200 in February.<\/p>\n

The figures emerged as Nationwide Building Society<\/a> announced the average house price climbed by 3.0 per cent annually in April, accelerating from 2.2 per cent annual growth in March.<\/p>\n

Property values rose by 0.4 per cent month-on-month in April, taking the typical UK house price to \u00a3278,880 \u2013 a new record high in cash terms, Nationwide said.<\/p>\n

\"How How interest rates have increased in recent years <\/p>\n

Dan Hill, a research analyst at Savills<\/a>, said: \u201cMuch of this data reflects buyers and homeowners acting with urgency to secure a lower rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karim Haji, global and UK head of financial services at KPMG, said: \u201cThe uptick in approvals for house purchases and remortgaging is surprising given the surge in rates during March.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis may point to some resilience in the market, but overall affordability remains under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Tebb, president of OnTheMarket, said: \u201cOur own property sentiment index suggests resilience and optimism among buyers and sellers. Even against a backdrop of ongoing political and economic turbulence, attitudes towards affordability, property values and moving home remain remarkably consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"How How average house prices have changed in recent years <\/p>\n

The Bank of England report also said the annual growth rate for all consumer credit accelerated to 8.9 per cent in March, from 8.6 per cent in February.<\/p>\n

Within this total, the annual growth rate for credit card borrowing increased to 12.3 per cent, from 12.1 per cent previously.<\/p>\n

Households\u2019 deposits with banks and building societies increased by \u00a35.5 billion in March, following net deposits of \u00a36.2 billion in February, the Bank said.<\/p>\n

This was partly driven by an additional \u00a34.4 billion of cash flowing into Isas in March, leading up to the end of the tax year.<\/p>\n

Also in March, UK non-financial businesses borrowed, on net, \u00a37.0 billion of loans from banks and building societies, including overdrafts, following \u00a34.2 billion of net borrowing in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mortgage approvals for home buyers in the UK surged to a four-month high in March, Bank of England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4513,1256,7734,563,728,9714,11883,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-26517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-annual-growth","9":"tag-bank-of-england","10":"tag-house","11":"tag-house-prices","12":"tag-mortgage-approvals","13":"tag-nationwide-building-society","14":"tag-remortgaging","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116499177980034398","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}