Pursuits
U.K. Home-Loan Market Rebounds to Best in Six Years: Mortgages
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The last time U.K. mortgage approvals were this high, lender Northern Rock Plc hadn’t yet collapsed, Gordon Brown was prime minister, and U.S. investment banks Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. were still in business.
Banks made 71,638 home loans in December, up from 70,820 a month earlier, the Bank of England said in a report today. That’s the most since January 2008 and is the 10th monthly increase, driven by Prime Minister David Cameron’s housing policies and the BOE. Analysts were expecting 72,900 loans, the median forecast of 23 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.