It looks like mortgage rates are on the increase. Scottish Widows, Halifax and NatWest have all announced they are withdrawing rates this week and new products will have higher rates.
If you are already on a fixed rate, give yourself a pat on the back, if you are in the process of applying for a fixed rate – you’ve done well, if you are sitting on your lender’s standard variable rate…. you need to do something. TODAY!
It was back in March 2009 that the Bank of England’s Monitory Policy Committee (MPC) voted to decrease the base rate to the all-time low of 0.5%. Following the Brexit vote in the summer of 2016, the MPC reduced the rate further to 0.25% , in order to stabilise the economy
I’m not sure if it’s the predicted inflation, Theresa May’s Tory Conference Speech or the progress with Brexit negotiations, but lenders are starting to edge their interest rates up a couple of blips. It could of course just be that they have had enough of not really making any money out of borrowers who are paying a meagre 1.2% interest.
Despite economic forecasters predicting rate increases every other month for the last 6 years, nothing has happened with the bank of England base rate. Last month, 2 out of 9 members of the MPC voted for an increase. The latest talk is of an increase by the end of the year. Who know when it’s coming, but we seem to have seen the start.
Today is the day.
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