Remortgages to beat new home loans

MORTGAGE brokers expect the market to remain buoyant in the next year, but most of the business will be from remortgages rather than new loans, adding weight to fears that the housing market may be stalling.

A survey of brokers, who account for 40% of the mortgage market, found that 74% thought they would sell more home loans in a year's time. That compared with 64% a year ago. The most confident were those in the south of England, according to the quarterly Mortgage Intermediaries Survey published today by market information group Taylor Nelson Sofres.

Sharon Rees, an executive at TNS, said most of the expected business would be in remortgages, indicating that borrowers would take advantage of better rates rather than move home.

The suggestion that the new loans market could be weakening echoes last week's figures from the British Bankers' Association, which showed the number of new mortgages approved by banks fell by a fifth last month.

The TNS survey found a small decrease in the proportion of mortgages arranged for first-time buyers in the past year, though the market remained strong - 22% of the home loan market.

Buy-to-let mortgages remain popular, with brokers saying that 18% of all mortgages arranged were in this category, compared with 14% a year ago.

Fixed-rate deals are expected to be the most sought after in the next three months.