Bad weather 'slowed mortgage market in January'

Thursday, February 11th 2010

The UK mortgage market suffered last month due to bad weather, the director of MyMortgageDirect commented.

Catherine Hearnden stated that "every single part" of the property-purchasing process "came to a standstill" in January during the worst of the cold snap.

"Nobody was able to do anything," she commented.

"Surveyors weren't able to get properties, people weren't able to go and view, estate agents were closed [and] solicitors weren't available."

However, she anticipated that the market is likely to pick up in the months following Easter, as sales traditionally increase as the weather warms up.

Ms Hearnden made her comments following information published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors which indicated that the number of buyer enquiries for the month of January dropped for the first time in 14 months.

The figures also indicated that newly-agreed sales fell for the first time in ten months.

In spite of January's weaker performance, the Centre for Economic and Business Research anticipated earlier this month that the average house price in the UK is set to increase by more than six per cent in the coming year.