Evening Standard - New mortgage price war breaks out amid property market torpor
A new mortgage price war has broken out in the run up to the Budget as high street lenders fight to win business from nervous buyers in a subdued housing market.
Both HSBC and TSB have cut their rates on fixed deals twice in a week following falls in the swap market used to price loans. Other lenders to have pushed through cuts include Halifax, Santander, NatWest, Barclays and Skipton Building Society.
Aaron Strutt of brokers Trinity Financial said: “Swaps have come down so the lenders can afford to make their rates a bit cheaper. There have not been many real rate changes from the bigger banks for quite some time so the announcements from Barclays, HSBC and Santander that they are making price cuts is good news.
“TSB has announced its second round of rate cuts in a week which is pretty unusual. We are at the stage where the banks and building societies want more business but the property market is much slower which is undoubtebly linked to the uncertainty surrounding the Budget.
“NatWest has just lowered its rates and now has a two year fix at 3.77% and a five-year fix at 3.90% which isn’t bad. If the base rate comes down again in December, then rates may well get a bit cheaper.
“Nationwide must be about to reprice its rates too seeing as all of its main competitors have made rate improvements.”
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