It’s kind of funny how you can pick things up anecdotally and then see official figures confirm your suspicions. In August we saw a good number of draw-downs, I called a few friends in other brokers to see what was happening with them and they said the same thing, bumper numbers (albeit by 2010 standards they are still horrific).
The high savings rate has translated into a higher level of repayment/prepayment on mortgages, in our annual prediction we said that lending would sit still or drop for this very reason, but that may yet prove mistaken if the trend continues.
2010 is the first time I can remember ever having a flipped season, normally nothing happens in the summer, the action is all in spring and autumn. However, the thing that every other broker said [and this goes for our firm too] is that August wasn’t necessarily ‘busy’, rather it was the flow through of all the constipated pipeline of the first half of the year. That isn’t exactly a beautiful connotation but …