Mortgages increase in number.

The latest Mortgage Monitor from e.surv reveals that in January 2012 the number of mortgages agreed by lenders rose to just over 58,500.

Richard Sexton who is the director of e.surv, commented on the figures, advising that this has been the biggest increase in 2 years. He went on to attribute the rise to lenders being prepared to offer more products aimed at borrowers with smaller deposits.

January's figures represent an 11% increase on the 52,900 or so mortgage approvals made in December 2011, the figures revealed a 29% increase from January last year. Richard Sexton advised that he felt that the mortgage market had managed to do a reasonable job in 2011, repelling the onslaught of problems from the eurozone.

He added that lender LTVs were steadily moving upwards and volumes of mortgage approvals seemed to be holding up well.

The e.surv data concluded that the increase in lenders approving more mortgages, had been driven by more loans to borrowers with smaller deposits and, by increased first-time buyer access to higher LTVs.

Figures from January 2011 highlighted that high LTV lending had almost doubled in the period to January 2012. The figures showed that loans to low deposit borrowers accounted only for 7% of the house purchases in January 2011, while in January 20121 low deposit approvals had increased to 13%.

Lenders now seem more willing to help low income buyers get on the property ladder.