Mortgage lending appears to be easing as it was shown in the month of November to have increased by 0.92%.  According to the recent report from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) it was revealed that not only had gross mortgage lending increased but there was also an increase in property transactions and fewer reported arrears.  There was a total lending value of £9 billion for 930,000 property transactions that were expected to be processed by the end of the year.  In 2011 the end of the year data was at 886,000 transactions at a value of £8 billion worth of lending.

Property values increased for the end of the year to £228,226.  This marks a 1% increase over last year.  The average was helped along for the year continuously as London experienced the trend of high demand for properties.  There was almost a 7% increase in the average house price for London.

The coming year is expected to experience continued increases in lending and the CML forecast for 2013 is an estimated £12 billion of net lending on 950,000 property transactions.  There is also an expectation of the return of the first time buyer as lending eases, interest rates remain low, and house prices become more affordable.  The estimate is that there will be a greater number of first time buyers returning to the market in the past five years at a level of 200,000 for the year.  The return of the first time buyer would offer some thawing out of the property ladder which has become frozen over the past year without buyers for starter homes.