Mortgage Lending falls by 40% says Nationwide

One of the largest building societies in the UK has said that lending for new mortgages has fallen by almost half in the last twelve months. As the nation undergoes its worst credit crunch in recent history (with a correspondingly high number of repossessions), the Independent have quoted Nationwide as lending £6.7 billion over the past year – a 40% drop on the previous twelve months.

Nationwide have maintained that their mortgage arrear were less than a third of the industry average, following a narrowing of the market to cater for those customers that are a lower risk (such as self-cert clients); although their confidence does not extend to the length of the credit crunch, labeling it 'difficult to predict'.

According to the Independent, Nationwide Chief Executive Graham Beale has suggested that we won't be seeing light at the end of the tunnel untill Spring 2009, and that the current crisis is 'unprecedented'. Whilst Nationwide has had its market share drop almost four percent over the past twelve months, they maintain that a 'quality over quantity' scenario is going to see them through, even at the exclusion of clients with adverse credit.