A mortgage lender has said that it will begin providing home loans again, after suspending the service last month.
First Direct has announced the resumption of its sales of home loans, in a sign of returning confidence in the UK mortgage market.
The lender, a subsidiary of banking giant HSBC, suspended its loans lending on April 1st after becoming oversubscribed. Rival lenders withdrawing deals and raising some of their mortgage rates had made more customers apply for First Direct's mortgages than the company could handle.
However, the firm now says that it has cleared the backlog of applications and is ready once more to accept new business. Chris Pulling, First Direct's chief executive, commented: "Last month we took the bold decision to withdraw from mortgage sales to non-customers to allow us to process the huge number of enquiries we had received."
He added: "We've now assessed all the loan applications outstanding from 1 April and earlier and let everyone know the outcome."
Mortgage applicants received further good news yesterday, as lending giant Halifax announced the reduction of some of its mortgage rates. The BBC reports that some offers have been reduced by a further 0.15 per cent, although these are open to re-mortgagers only.
Previous research from Moneyfacts.co.uk has suggested that as many as 60 per cent of home loans deals have been withdrawn by lenders over the past few months, due in part to the general economic slowdown caused by the credit crunch.
