Category: Mortgage

Mortgage rates between 3.5% and 4.5% will be the “new normal” even after base rates begin to fall, says the head of the UK’s biggest home loan lender.  

“We have just come off a decade where mortgages have been in the 1.5% and 2.5% range,” Lloyds Banking Group chief executive Charlie Nunn told Sky News.  

“The expectation that markets have is that interest rates won’t get below 3.5% — and that means that the new normal for mortgages will be in that 3.5% and 4.5% range.”  

Nunn warned that these rates will not come to market until the Bank of England begins a series of base rate cuts.  

The base rate has remained at a 16-year high of 5.25% since last August. The last time the central bank cut rates was in March 2020. 

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High street lender Natwest will cut new business and existing customer rates by up to 0.23%, including purchase and remortgage deals.

On the purchase side, Natwest’s two- and five-year deals will fall by around 0.12% and 0.23%. This includes its fee-free two-year fixed rate at 95% loan to value (LTV), which has fallen from 6.27% to 6.04%.

In its remortgage range, two- and five-year deals will fall by around 0.08% and 0.13%. Its two-year fixed rate at 80% LTV with a £995 fee will go down from 5.66% to 5.53%.

Purchase and remortgage high-value deals will contract by around 0.1% and 0.13% respectively.

Within Natwest’s first-time buyer range, cuts of around 0.05% and 0.06% will apply. An example includes its five-year fixed rate purchase with no fee and £250 cashback at 90% LTV falling to 5.02%.

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With the cost of living continuing to apply mounting pressure onto people’s wallets, many homeowners may be concerned with paying their mortgages.

If you feel that you’re barely struggling with keeping up with your mortgage payments, there are some things you can do to help you manage. Experts at Citizens Advice have highlighted that looking for a new mortgage deal might not be the best option.

They noted that it may be difficult “to find new mortgage deals at the moment”, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t still save money in other ways. It’s important to note that if you have already missed a mortgage payment, you should prioritise paying what you owe as growing debt can result in a lender taking you to court and ultimately lead you to losing your home.

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The value of gross mortgage lending rose to £22.2bn in May, the fourth consecutive month to see an increase, data from the central bank showed.

The Bank of England (BoE) Money and Credit report showed this was up from £21.1bn in April and higher than the six-month average of £18.7bn. 

Gross mortgage repayments also rose from £19.3bn to £20.5bn from April to May. 

The net borrowing of mortgage debt fell from £2.2bn to £1.2bn month-on-month.

Karen Noye, mortgage expert at Quilter, said the decrease in net mortgage borrowing highlighted the “cautious approach buyers are taking amidst an unpredictable economic outlook and fluctuating mortgage rates”. 

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NatWest has cut selected fixed rate mortgage deals, available direct and through brokers, by up to 0.23 percentage points, effective from tomorrow (2 July), writes Jo Thornhill.

It follows cuts of up to 0.17 percentage points to fixed rate deals by the bank less than two weeks ago.

Among the newly-priced deals is a five-year fixed rate for purchase at 4.34%, or 4.77% over two years. For remortgage, five-year rates are available at 4.41%, or 4.81% over two years. These deals are all available at 60% loan to value and come with a £995 product fee.

NatWest has also cut rates on its product transfer deals (those for existing borrowers looking for a new rate). For these customers the bank is offering a five-year fixed rate at 4.46% or a two-year rate at 4.86%. Both deals are at 60% LTV and charge a £995 fee.

Selected buy-to-let (BTL) deals at NatWest have been cut by up to 0.18 percentage points. Deals for BTL remortgage start from 4.81% fixed over two years, or 4.66% fixed over five years. These deals are available at a 60% loan to value and come with a £3,499 fee. BTL deals with a lower product fee are available at higher rates.

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The Bank of England held its Bank Rate at 5.25% in June, as was widely expected. It was the seventh time in a row the Rate has been frozen since it rose to its current level in August 2023. It had previously undergone 14 consecutive rises (between December 2021, when it stood at just 0.1%, and last August).

The next interest rate announcement by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will be on 1 August at noon. The market is predicting that the Bank Rate will fall to 5% at that point.

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The monthly mortgage of a first-time buyer has soared by more than 60% to exceed £1,000 a month since the last general election, according to figures that underline the financial challenge facing Britons trying to gain a foothold on the housing ladder.

Over the last five years, the average mortgage payment for a typical first-time buyer in Great Britain has risen by 61% to £1,075 a month, up from £667 in 2019, according to the property website Rightmove.

The increase of about £400 a month is linked to the march of house prices and interest rates, which have heaped financial pressure on borrowers, whose average wages have grown by just 27% over the same period. The financial squeeze has forced many younger borrowers to either look for smaller properties or to take out an ultra-long mortgage.

“As rates have increased over the last five years, the amount that a typical first-time buyer is paying each month on a mortgage has outstripped the pace of earning growth,” said Tim Bannister, a Rightmove property expert. “Some first-time buyers are looking at extending their mortgage terms to 30 or 35 years to lower monthly payments, or looking at cheaper homes for sale so that they need to borrow less.”

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Someone newly getting onto the property ladder can expect to pay around £400 more per month for their mortgage than five years ago, analysis suggests.

Calculations by property website Rightmove suggest the average first-time buyer mortgage payment has risen by 61% since the last General Election year of 2019, from £667 to £1,075 per month.

The calculations made various assumptions, including that first-time buyers would have a 20% deposit to put down, that their mortgage term would last 25 years and that they were taking out a five-year fixed-rate mortgage on an average rate.

Rightmove also used average asking prices of a typical first-time buyer homes, with two bedrooms or fewer, for the research.

Across Britain, first-time buyers now face paying £227,757 for a home, an amount which has jumped by nearly a fifth (19%) since 2019, Rightmove said.

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