Lowering mortgage deposit requirements will not be enough

Given the focus of much analysis of the housing market, a casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that the withdrawal of high loan to value mortgage products was the root cause of the slump in mortgage lending. In fact, the drop in high loan to income mortgages has played a larger role. It is hard to know precisely how much of the fall in mortgage lending has been supply-driven or demandled. But we suspect that a lack of high income multiple loans is likely to remain a constraint on activity for some time to come.