The value of mortgage approvals granted by building societies rose by 10% in 2015 with the number of loans approved up 6%.
According to the Building Society Association (BSA), around one third of their customers were first time buyers. In total building societies approved 395,309 mortgages in 2015, representing 31.5% of all mortgages approved.
Paul Broadhead, Head of Mortgage Policy at the BSA said: “Competition in the mortgage market picked up in 2015 with the large banks demonstrating an increased appetite to lend. Despite this, building societies have continued to benefit from their ability to provide mortgages to consumers with a wide range of requirements, including first time buyers, self-builders, shared owners and those needing mortgages later in life.
“Building societies’ market share in savings has held up well despite Government-backed NS&I more than trebling its share of the market in 2015.
“Despite European and global uncertainty, consumer sentiment in the housing market remains strong and building societies will continue to have a compelling mortgage lending proposition during 2016. However, we do remain concerned about consumer affordability across all housing tenures due to the continued shortage of housing supply. We remain convinced that a healthy housing market offers consumers a choice of tenures, whether full or shared ownership, social housing or private rental and that public policy should support this.”
