With only two months remaining in 2023, we’ve drawn together the latest mortgage news updates for homeowners and first-time buyers.
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mortgage NEWS & UPDATES
Average mortgage rates continue to fall: Rightmove
It’s now the tenth week that average rates of dropped, as the slow but steady downward trend of fixed mortgage rates continues.
Rightmove’s mortgage expert Matt Smith explains that as more lenders begin to offer sub-5% rates, this is likely to demonstrate increasing confidence that swap rates, the underlying costs of fixed-rate mortgages, will remain stable for lenders, meaning there may be more room for rates to fall, particularly for those with a smaller deposit.
“We’re starting to see more attractive rates in some Loan-to-Value (LTV) brackets than a year ago as we begin to compare rates with the post-mini-Budget period, though this doesn’t take away the fact that mortgage costs are still much higher than most have been used to.
SOURCE - MORTGAGE STRATEGY
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Borrowers look to penalty-free mortgages as overpayment desire grows – analysis
Some advisers have noted a trend in borrowers either looking to make significant overpayments on their mortgages or find ways to make this possible in the future so they can reduce or be free from their debt.
Greg Cunnington, chief operating officer of LDN Finance, said the firm was “definitely seeing a trend” of people wanting to overpay their mortgages, adding that these were sometimes “significant sums”.
According to Cunnington, the percentage of applications that the firm has advised on with no early repayment chrages has “more than doubled this year”.
He said borrowers were looking to “take advantage of overpaying, or the opportunity to overpay, when possible”.
“When mortgage rates began with a one, or even a zero, cash rich clients would often still obtain higher than required mortgage finance to exploit this; but with rates now higher, these clients are looking to pay these loans down where they can,” Cunnington added.
SOURCE - MORTGAGE SOLUTIONS
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Average rents reach record-high as demand continues to grow – Rightmove
The average rent outside and inside London have reached record
high of £1,278 and £2,627 per month as the number of enquiries
per property continues to rise, a report has found.
According to Rightmove, the average rent outside of London has grown for the 15th consecutive quarter and is 10 per cent higher than this time last year.
Within London, the average rent has increased 12.1 per cent compared to the same period last year.
The report noted that one of the factors driving rapidly increasing rent was a lack of available rental properties to meet demand.
It continued that the average rental property across Great Britain was currently receiving 25 enquiries from prospective tenants to letting agents. This is over triple the average figure in 2019 and is five more than the figure reported in May this year.
SOURCE - MORTGAGE STRATEGY
Skipton adds low-rate mortgages for struggling borrowers
Skipton Building Society has launched a low-rate mortgage range for existing borrowers facing payment difficulties.
The mutual has developed a suite of products that give any of its existing owner-occupied borrowers approaching the end of their current deal and who will be stretched on current rates, the opportunity to bridge their payments by maintaining a lower interest rate for two years.
The firm points out: “With the UK having seen strong house price index growth over the past two years, many borrowers may now fall into a lower loan-to-value bracket than they expected.
“The new range enables those borrowers in need of greater financial support to harness that additional equity to support them over the two-year period, by offsetting a lower interest rate — and monthly payments — with a higher upfront fee.”
SOURCE - MORTGAGE STRATEGY
