Leeds Building Society posted a record annual pre-tax profit of £220.5m, up 35% on a year ago, as home loan growth helped it beat “all previous lending records”.
The mutual hit record gross mortgage lending figures up 13.6% to £5bn, record net lending up 33% to £2bn, to give it record total mortgage assets up 11% to £20.3bn.
The business says 2022 was marked by “political and economic upheaval” which included the government’s mini-Budget, but it still managed to “support for the housing market”.
It says last year provided nine out of its 10 busiest lending days, while it made loans to almost nearly 18,000 first-time buyers, around one in three of all the firm’s new lending.
Leeds Building Society chief executive Richard Fearon says: “Our continued support for the housing market enabled us to surpass all previous lending records.
“We really delivered on helping to put home ownership within reach of more people with total mortgage lending of £5bn.
“We continued to offer strong support for customers less well served by the wider market despite the extremely volatile conditions we were operating in.”
He adds: “The past couple of years have been challenging for everyone and we face into what could be prolonged economic headwinds.
“It is now the hardest time to afford a home since our founding year in 1875, a sad reflection of decades of inaction to tackle the UK’s housing crisis.”
The mutual adds that its total savings deposits lifted 14.8% to £17.5bn in the year, another record high.
