Lockdown boosts the housing market as homeworkers need more space - Halifax Bank

Russell Galley, managing director at Halifax, said: “Over the past three months, we have received more mortgage applications, from both first-time buyers and homemovers, than any time since 2008, and seen evidence of a fundamental shift in demand from buyers brought about by the structural effects of increased home working and a desire for more space.

“This housing market ‘mini-boom’ has been driven by a surge in buyer demand for larger properties, as the cost of the largest types of properties in the UK has risen at more than twice the rate than for the smallest homes.”

Halifax has not split out its figures from parent company Lloyds Banking Group. However, the group said its mortgage book increased by £3bn, its highest level since 2008.

Mr Galley said the latest Halifax House Price Index showed a strong performance in the housing market since lockdown restrictions began to ease in May. He said the stamp duty holiday has been another incentive for sellers and buyers to close deals quickly before the deadline early next year.

Speaking about the lockdown, Mr Galley said Halifax has made over a quarter of a million calls to customers to check they are coping. Many customers have taken out mortgage holidays amid job uncertainty and the furlough of staff.

Mr Galley said: “I continue to be amazed by the commitment and dedication of our colleagues who have been working to keep our branches and contact centres open so we can be there when our customers need us most.

“We have adapted to new ways of working from kitchen tables and homes across the country and we’ve made more than 250,000 wellbeing calls to customers this year to check in on how they are doing and see how we can support them with their everyday banking.”

Halifax recently launched an energy saving tool to help customers save money and cut global warming.

Mr Galley said: “We all know that in these challenging times customers are looking for ways to save money while we’ve also seen people become more and more concerned about the environment.

“I’ve been really pleased to see lots of online traffic to our energy saving tool that we recently launched in partnership with the Energy Saving Trust, to help show how making some changes to your home can reduce carbon emissions. It’s really quick and easy to use.”

Halifax’s energy saving tool gives people a personalised action plan with estimates of their Energy Performance Certificate rating, energy costs and their home’s carbon dioxide emissions, as well as how much could be saved in the long-term.

“Since homes make up 22 per cent of the UK’s total carbon emissions, I’m chuffed to see people checking out our free tool to see what difference they can make,” said Mr Galley.

He was speaking as Lloyds Banking Group returned to profit after taking hits from the Covid-19 pandemic earlier in the year. The group made a £1bn pre-tax profit in July, August and September, on net income of £3.4bn.

The profit was far ahead of last year’s £50m, and also nearly twice the £588m that analysts had predicted.

Lloyds took impairments of £301m, £400m less than expected, and said that its full year impairments will be at the lower end of the £4.5bn to £5.5bn that it had earmarked for a tough year.

Lloyds has been cashing in on a boom in demand for mortgages.

The bank booked new mortgage lending of £3.5bn over the quarter, following the biggest surge in quarterly applications since 2008.

Lloyds’ chief executive, Antonio Horta-Osorio, said: “The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy and on people and businesses within the UK has been unprecedented.

“We remain focused on working together with the Government and our regulators to ensure that we continue to support our customers in this challenging time.

“Although our performance has clearly been impacted by the pandemic and the associated challenging economic environment, I am pleased that we are now seeing an encouraging business recovery and, with impairments significantly lower, a return to profitability in the third quarter.”