ABSTRACT
This chapter covers a considerable amount of ground. The text began by suggesting that the supply of mortgage finance for owner-occupation has been only one of three dominant forms for securing the realisation of housing output in Britain. The development of mortgage finance institutions which provided particular strata of the working population with loans sufficient for house purchase and owner-occupation. Instead the have to rely on the DoE's National Movers Survey which tabulates the main source of finance for purchase in England and Wales. So the activities of the building societies, which constitute the subject-matter of the rest of this chapter, are the key to understanding the supply of loans for house purchase. Mortgage finance both for house purchase and rehabilitation work obviously is one item. Human life comprehends an immense variety of activities. Amongst these is one set of pursuits which, in a material sense, can be regarded as fundamental.
