Mortgage approvals in the U.K. are expected to remain flat this year, according to Hometrack. The British housing intelligence firm says lenders will approve some 1.2 million mortgages in 2011, basically the same as last year, and a slight decline from the 1.3 million in 2009. David Catti, Hometrack’s ceo, said this is “a far cry” from the more than 3 million mortgages issued in the peak of the housing boom in 2007. A constrained securitization market and unpredictable wholesale funding market are said to be the reasons for the stagnant growth.
