Britain’s mortgage lenders reined in the pace of making new loans sharply in the third quarter as arrears jumped, a further sign that the Bank of England’s string of interest rate hikes is slowing activity in the housing market.
Lenders made commitments on £51.5 billion ($64.7 billion) of mortgages in the third quarter, according to the BOE’s Mortgage Lenders and Administrators Statistics published Tuesday. That was down 16.5% on the previous quarter and 41.4% from a year ago.