The impact of the dislocation in global financial markets on the mortgage and housing markets in the UK was extreme. The importance of financial services to the wider economy, the housing market and household debt levels was highlighted in significant changes in leading indicators in these areas. Mortgage lending reached its peak in 2007 when gross lending was £363bn, by 2008 this had fallen to £253bn, and in 2009 it had reached a low of £141bn. Residential property transactions fell from 1.6 million in 2007 to 800,000 in 2009, while possessions grew from just under 26,000 in 2007 to 48,000 in 2009.

The Treasury, Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority (now the Financial Conduct Authority) intervened in a number of ways in 2008: recapitalising banks and building societies, guaranteeing the availability of medium-term funding; nationalising Bradford & Bingley; and introducing a cumulative cut in official short-term interest rates of three per cent. Unfortunately, those interventions came too late to avoid negative impacts on the mortgage and housing markets.

The collapse of the wholesale markets meant fewer funds to underpin new mortgage lending and higher funding costs for all lenders, leading to tighter lending criteria and a depressed market. There were significant house price falls with the potential for further reductions and this, among other things, led lenders to be much more cautious about advancing higher LTV loans, leading to particular challenges for first-time buyers coming into the market.

While the downturn was not caused by specific conduct failures, the regulator took the opportunity to review a number of core elements of mortgage regulation. This was a process that lasted several years and culminated in new rules that came into place in 2014 (known collectively as the ?Mortgage Market Review? or ?MMR?). Key changes included income verification in all cases, a detailed income and expenditure assessment for all borrowers - including stressing repayments to ensure they are affordable if interest rates go up, a requirement for there to be a credible repayment strategy for all interest-only mortgages, and an expectation that the vast majority of customers would get advice before they took out a mortgage. Given that the direction of regulatory travel had been known for some time, lenders were already well on their way to tightening their lending criteria before 2014.

So what impact have these changes had on the market ten years on from the crisis? Gross lending looks likely to be around £270bn in 2018, the highest annual figure in a decade, and possessions will be at around 7,000 - the lowest level since we began collecting this data 24 years ago. Housing transactions have increased to 1.2 million.

We don't expect lending levels to get back to the levels of 2007, and that's probably for the best. But we have a healthy, very competitive mortgage market that serves the needs of the changing nature of customer circumstances today and continues to innovate.