A new report has shown that the property lending market in Scotland has begun to recover, albeit at a slower rate than has been seen in the lending market for the UK in general. The report released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders illustrated that house-buying activity continued its recovery during the last three months of last year, showing that there were 14,200 loans granted for house buying purposes in the fourth quarter of 2009. This represents a rise of 4% by number and 5% in terms of value on the figures of the preceding three month period.

The report by the CML also indicated that general growth in Scotland’s housing market was slightly down on that seen in the UK as a whole, with Scotland seeing a 9% rise in house-buying activity in the final quarter of 2009 as well as a 62% YOY rise. The increase seen in Scotland from the final three months of 2008 was 22% by volume and 19% by value, which goes to show the extent to which the market in Scotland recovered during 2009 from its low point in the first quarter of 2008 when figures of 7,600 loans with a total value of £785 million were seen according to the Council for Mortgage Lenders.

Due to the slower market upswing Scotland’s portion of all house-buying loans fell to just 8% for the quarter, which represents the lowest market share for almost three years. The 9% share for 2009 overall was don from 2008’s high point figure of 12%.

Scotland’s number of first-time buyers remained unchanged, standing at 5,400 in the fourth quarter. However, the value of lending to first-time buyers rose during the finals three month period-from £475 million to £479 million, with the number of loans also rising from 4,100-at a value of £368 million, YOY. Re-mortgaging volumes have stayed low in Scotland, however, and this is very much in concert with what is happening in the rest of the UK.

Scotland saw 9,000 loans for re-mortgaging totalling £900 million for the fourth quarter, a figure down from 10,000 loans totalling £1 billion over the preceding three months. In 2009 as a whole, Scotland saw 39,000 in total worth £4.4 billion for the purposes of re-mortgaging, figures down from 74,000 worth £7.4 billion in 2008. Just like in the UK as a whole, a lot of Scottish borrowers  are still likely to have difficulties obtaining the more alluring new deals and top mortgage rates which tend to only be on offer to people capable of putting down larger deposits, according to the report.