The Bank of England has now changed the playing field for lenders who offer mortgage lending. Prior to the change, banks could not exceed a certain number of high loan to income loans within the quarter. The banks had a quota for these types of loans. The Central Bank has now altered the rules pertaining to this rule and is now regulating how many of these types of loans are obtained on an annual basis. Now, more borrowers are able to obtain high loan to income mortgages, according to the Bank of England.

The coming months could prove to be some of the most active for those in search of high loan to income loans, according to many close to an in the housing market. The old rule which applied to banks limited them to only 15% of these types of loans existing on their books during the quarter. Now, lenders have the freedom of having more of these types of loans present without surpassing the limit.

Ray Boulger of John Charcol mortgage broker commented on the new bank rule, saying: "In the short-term there will be scope to increase the proportion of offers in excess of 4.5 times income more than that.

"Because many mortgage offers are valid for up to six months but lenders don't know how quickly borrowers will complete, each lender has up to now had to assume that a higher than statistically likely proportion of offers in excess of 4.5 times income will complete quickly.”

Boulger added: "As a result lenders have restricted the proportion of offers in excess of 4.5 times income to about 13 per cent, compared to the Prudential Regulation Authority's actual limit of 15 per cent."