Good news for those seeking a mortgage comes from the Abbey National, where fees on their flexible mortgage products will be GBP1,000 lower than they were at just GBP1,499.
The Abbey National flexible mortgage deals allow customers to offset their savings against their mortgage, pay more than is required and also take holidays from paying for periods of time. The benefits of such mortgages are supreme flexibility and the chance to clear a mortgage in a much shorter time than a regular one, saving many thousands of pounds in the process by paying less interest.
Although the flexible mortgage deals offered by the Abbey are very good ones there are question marks over how many people are actually buying property at the moment, so there may be a bigger market for them with existing homeowners who are coming off a fixed rate deal.
Special Summer offers have been announced by the Co-op, better known in financial circles as CIS. Their key offer is on a three year tracker mortgage that is only available to CIS current account holders.
The first thing to notice is the sub 6 percent interest rate – 5.99 percent when customers can provide a 25 percent deposit. There is also no fee on this particular mortgage, something that is refreshing in the mortgage market of today. Customers will also be pleased to see that there are no legal fees and remortgage customers can also receive a free property valuation.
There is great flexibility in this CIS mortgage too, with the option to overpay and thus reduce the total repayment term and interest. Payment holidays are also available to help customers manage their expenditure from time to time.
The Halifax is to close over 50 of its estate agent branches across the country with the loss of around a hundred jobs.
The move by the Halifax comes on the back of what they have described as a significant decline in house sale numbers over the last 12 months. The heart of the Halifax estate agency business is in the North and Midlands, and it is here that they will focus most of their efforts moving forwards.
Around 550 people will find their estate agency branches closing but the Halifax will be able to relocate most of these people, with a hundred that will hopefully be taken up primarily through voluntary redundancies and natural staff turnover.