The housing boom helped boost lending at Chelsea Building Society with total mortgage advances racing ahead by 23%, it was announced today.
The Cheltenham-based mutual said a combination of the buoyant property market, competitive mortgage rates and the expansion of its telesales force all helped total lending grow to £1.26bn.
But once repayments and redemptions were taken into account, overall lending for the year to the end of December fell to £471m from £528m in 2000.
Chelsea said the fall was partly due to the competitive mortgage environment, but added that at 7.1% its current share of the building society lending market was nearly double the figure that would be expected for a mutual of its size.
During the year, provisions for bad debts were increased by £2m to £11.6m as the UK economy deteriorated, though the society said this was still only the equivalent of 0.25% of its outstanding lending.
Savings deposited with Chelsea, the UK’s seventh largest building society, rose to £883m during the year from £769m in 2000.
Overall pre-tax profits were up 2.5% at £44.4m compared to £43.2m the previous year.
EGi News 07/02/02
