Sixty years on: how times have changed in the property market

by Aaron Strutt

Jun 01 2012

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has produced a review of the housing and mortgage markets and they highlight the significant changes over the Queen's 60-year reign. For example:

• In 1952, the UK managed to construct 248,000 new homes - an impressive total compared to 145,000 built in 2011.
• The 1951 census recorded the population of the UK at almost 45 million. In the same year, the stock of dwellings totalled 14.1 million. By 2010, the number of homes in the UK had almost doubled to 27.2 million, to house a population that had grown by around 40% to 62 million.
• The last 60 years has also seen a huge expansion in mortgage lending. Data on building society gross advances extending back only to 1955 shows that at that stage, three years after the Queen began her reign, societies advanced mortgages totalling £399 million. This year, the CML are forecasting that lending will amount to £133 billion, broadly in line with the totals advanced in each of the three previous years. But in 2007, before the onset of the credit crunch, lenders advanced mortgages worth £363 billion.

To view the whole story please click on this link: http://www.cml.org.uk/cml/publications/newsandviews/114/429 June 1, 2012