Well known high street building society the Alliance and Leicester has just announced some new mortgage offers offering a variety of options for housebuyers.
Fixed rate mortgages are very popular right now as people look to get some stability with their repayments. To this end the Alliance and Leicester mortgage offers include two new fixed rate options. Their five year fixed rate deal will cover up to 90 percent of the property price and stands at 7.14 percent interest. There is also a shorter two year rate, quoting just 6.14 percent interest but restricted to those able to put down a deposit of 25 percent or more.
Catering for the variable rate market the Alliance and Leicester have also introduced a tracker mortgage that follows the Bank of England base rate. Of course this does not ensure a fixed repayment amount but the interest rates are currently lower than the fixed rate alternatives so can prove enticing.
As of 17 June the Nationwide Building Society mortgage rates will be increased by up to 0.5 percent on a number of their products.
New customers taking fixed rate or tracker mortgages, as well as those remortgaging, will face higher interest rates, a situation that the nationwide Building Society is blaming on the increased cost of borrowing between financial institutions. Looking at the broader picture the interest rate on a 2 year fixed rate mortgage with a five percent deposit is around 1.4 percent more than it was just a year ago.
A Nationwide Building Society spokesman defended the changes, explaining how their costs had increased and left them with no other option but to pass on some of that cost to their customers. They were not alone in increasing their rates either, with many other big name lenders increasing their rates too.
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.
