The latest data to come from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has shown that the number of repossessions in the period July to September was up by 3 per cent to 11,700, BBC News has written.
That figure is 5 per cent higher than for the same quarter in 2008. However, the CML took the figure as being fairly good news and cut its forecast for repossessions in 2009 to 48,000 ? the second cut in the forecast it has made.
Repossessions, it said, were being kept down thanks to a combination of ?lender forbearance?, measures taken by the Government and the continuing effect of low interest rates. The CML?s original forecast for repossessions in 2009 was a steep rise to 75,000, but its forecast now is only 8,000 more than the 40,000 in 2008.
CML?s director general Michael Coogan commented: ?We are glad to have been wrong on our previous forecast for mortgage repossessions this year. Although the economy is not out of the woods yet, we no longer expect a dramatic rise in properties being taken into possession unless interest rates rise from the low levels that most commentators now expect to persist for some time.?
Further figures from the CML showed that the number of mortgages in arrears was down in quarter three, as was the proportion of mortgages. These movements have been achieved in spite of the ongoing recession and rising unemployment.
At the end of the quarter 194,600 mortgages (1.77 per cent of all mortgages) had arrears which amounted to more than 2.5 per cent of the remaining loan. That figure is 9,600 (5 per cent) less than the figure at the end of June, which was 204,200.
However, figure at the end of September was 29 per cent higher than at the end of September 2008.
