The mutual says its gross mortgage lending lifted 35% to £483m in the half year to 30 June, reflecting the kick-start the market was given after the Treasury introduced the stamp duty holiday last July.
The government boost came because the housing market had almost ground to a halt due to lockdown restrictions introduced last spring sparked by the pandemic.
The mutual says net core residential lending was £220m in the first six months of this year, compared to £228m for the whole of 2020.
It added more than 2,300 new mortgage customers, and mortgage arrears came in at 0.43%.
The company turned in a profit of £2.2m in the same period a year ago.
During the first six months of the year the firm entered into a new-build home purchase scheme, called Deposit Unlock, with insurance broker, Gallagher Re, The Home Builders Federation and four of its members — Vistry Group, Barratt Developments, Keepmoat Homes, and Bellway Homes.
It also joined the government’s First Homes scheme, which helps local first-time buyers and key workers onto the property ladder by offering homes at a discount of around 30% compared to the market price.
The building society says it also offers 95% loan-to-value mortgages and Help to Buy lending to encourage homeownership. And has a Joint mortgage sole proprietor loan, which allows a borrower to use the income of a family member to calculate affordability, boosting borrowing capacity.
Newcastle Building Society chief executive officer, Andrew Haigh says: “Although we are experiencing positive uplifts in the economy, we are mindful that uncertainty continues to dominate not just the economic environment, but the lives of our members too and is likely to continue for some time.
“The resilience we demonstrated in 2020 laid the necessary foundations to deliver strong results in the first half of 2021, despite Covid-19 restrictions and uncertainties.
“We’ve continued our focus on helping communities recover from the impacts of the pandemic, and driven innovations in homeownership to help borrowers onto the property ladder, particularly those with lower deposits.”
