New mortgage customers at the Halifax will have to pay a little more for their home loans from today if they are taking out a tracker or fixed rate mortgage product.
The Halifax tracker mortgage rate goes up to 6.29 percent from 5.99, which is 1.29 percent above the base rate set by the Bank of England. Meanwhile the three year fixed rate mortgage offer rises to 6.44 percent, up from 6.22. A Halifax spokesman clarified that the increases will apply to just 5 of the 32 different tracker mortgages they offer and 19 of the 31 different fixed rate mortgages provided.
In that context then there are still many opportunities to avoid paying the extra interest, though of course the Halifax mortgage products that have been selected are the ones that will be the most popular.
Halifax has just announced the eighth cut in their mortgage rates this year, with almost half of their mortgage products having their interest rates reduced by up to 0.15 percent.
A typical example is the Halifax 5 year fixed rate mortgage which comes down from a 6.49 percent interest rate to 6.34 percent. The Halifax has also cut fees on some of its products, with the recently introduced stepped tracker mortgage having GBP200 cut off the fee.
The mortgage market is seeing all manner of fluctuations right now, with the base rate and general economic climate leading mortgage providers to look at different ways to get customers on board. The Halifax is doing what it can by cutting rates and fees where they can and are hopeful that demand will increase on the back of them.
The latest offer in the mortgage market comes from Lloyds TSB which has introduced a new Airmiles mortgage.
The Lloyds TSB mortgage is not as novel as it sounds, the Airmiles being provided for taking out the mortgage, customers are not able to pay it off using them. The three tear fixed rate offer gives customers 50 Airmiles when signing up plus a further 6,000 when it is completed. The interest rate on the mortgage begins at 5.89 percent depending on applicant circumstances.
As a spokeswoman from Lloyds TSB said, this new mortgage combines a good rate of interest, a decent length fixed term and also a practical and useful reward that customers can use.