Editor's note: This brief was summarised by The Property AI Newsroom from a report by Mortgage Solutions. Read the original article for full details.

High LTV Mortgage Lending Hits Post-2008 Peak, BoE Reports

The Bank of England has reported that the share of new mortgages with a loan to value (LTV) above 90% reached 8.4% in Q2 2026, the highest level since the same period in 2008. Meanwhile, buy-to-let (BTL) mortgage advances fell to their lowest share since Q3 2024.

According to the Bank of England’s Mortgage Lenders and Administrators data, the proportion of new mortgages above 90% LTV rose by 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter and was 1.4 percentage points higher than a year earlier. Within this, lending above 95% LTV remained flat on the quarter at 0.5% of new lending, but was 0.2 percentage points higher than the same period in 2025.

The share of gross mortgages advanced above 75% LTV also reached its highest since Q4 2007, accounting for 47.5% of lending in Q2 2026. This figure was 1.5 percentage points higher than the previous quarter and 4.2 percentage points higher than last year.

Gross mortgage lending overall increased by 11.1% quarter-on-quarter to £77.4 billion, and was 31.7% higher than the previous year. The value of agreed lending rose by 1.4% from the previous quarter to £79.2 billion, which was 1.3% higher than a year ago.

The Bank of England also reported that the share of lending for buy-to-let purposes represented 8% of advances in Q2 2026, the lowest since Q3 2024. This was a decrease of 0.9 percentage points from the previous quarter and 1.2 percentage points lower than last year. Advances to owner-occupiers made up 92% of business, with the share of advances for remortgages rising 3.1 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 31.2%, the highest since Q1 2024.

For letting agents and inventory clerks, these figures highlight ongoing shifts in mortgage lending patterns, with high LTV lending at its strongest since the financial crisis and buy-to-let activity at a near two-year low.