London is home to a quarter of mortgage debt
ONE IN every four pounds of outstanding mortgage debt in Great Britain is tied to a house in London, figures out yesterday showed, in the latest sign of the capital’s dominance of the housing market.
Data put together by the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed the 20 most-mortgaged postcodes are all in London, as well as 92 of the top 100.
The figures, representing around three-quarters of the mortgages issued and broken down by postcode rather than household, show that £227bn out of the £891bn mortgage debts included in the research are secured on London homes.
The figures have changed little since December, when banks published lending data by location for the first time.
With a total of £649,426,811 in outstanding residential property loans, the area south of Clapham Junction under the SW11 6 postcode is the most mortgaged area in Great Britain.
Similar figures on personal loans from the British Bankers’ Association show that an area in Bath has the most indebted residents, with the average person owing £2,311 to the major banks included in the research.
The area around City Road under the London EC1V 2 postcode comes in second, with each resident owing an average of £2,188.
The BBA’s figures on small business lending, which have compiled around 60 per cent of the total loans in issue, found that London firms borrow less than their share, making up 29 per cent of all small businesses but just 21 per cent of the lending in September.