The Bank’s estimate of mortgage equity withdrawal (MEW) is intended to measure that part of secured borrowing that is not invested in the housing market.
It takes the increase in housing finance (net mortgage lending and capital grants) and subtracts households’ investment in housing (purchases of new houses and houses from other sectors, improvements to property, and the transactions costs of moving house).
So MEW is measured as:
+ Households’ net lending secured on dwellings
+ Capital grants for housing paid to the personal sector and housing associations
- Household sector investment in dwellings
- Net transfers of land to the household sector
- Household transfer costs and transfers of dwellings between sectors
