UK mortgage numbers halved in Jan from year ago

LONDON (AP): The number of home mortgages completed in Britain was more than halved in January from a year earlier, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said Thursday, new evidence that the credit crunch is ravaging the property market.

Mortgages for home purchases totaled 23,400 in January, down from 32,400 in December and 48,600 in January 2008, the report said. The number of remortgage loans fell by half to 44,000.

The council, whose members account for 98 percent of British mortgage lending, said there were 8,900 mortgages completed for first-time buyers in January, down 51 percent from a year earlier. The average loan value was 76 percent of the property value, the lowest on record and down from 89 percent a year earlier.

Michael Coogan, the council's director general, said the market was constricted by the withdrawal of many special and foreign lenders.

``Government schemes to restore the flow of funds are primarily focused on a few large banks and recent lending commitments by a few lenders cannot fill the gap overnight although we hope to see more funds flowing into mortgage activity later in the year,'' Coogan said.