Repricing continues despite today’s Bank of England base rate hold
Halifax and Santander have both announced mortgage rate increases, adding to a week of repricing as lenders respond to shifting funding costs.
Mortgage lending giant Halifax will raise pricing across its fixed-rate ranges, effective from tomorrow, March 20, with increases of 15 basis points (bps) on remortgage products and 10bps on purchase fixes.
Halifax’s buy-to-let arm, BM Solutions, is also repricing. Fixed rates for buy-to-let and let-to-buy in personal ownership will rise by between 8bps and 19bps, while limited company buy-to-let fixed rates will increase by 5bps to 15bps. Product transfers and further advances at BM Solutions will go up by 15bps.
Santander, meanwhile, has announced a further round of increases, also effective from tomorrow, raising new business rates for first-time buyers, home movers, large loans, remortgages and buy-to-let by up to 3bps. In its product transfer range, most residential and buy-to-let rates will increase by up to 19bps. The move follows a recent increase announced by the high street lender earlier this week.
Brokers said the Bank of the England’s decision to hold the base interest rate at 3.75% has not stopped lenders adjusting pricing as funding costs and swap rates continue to edge up.
“Mortgage funding costs are still going up so there are likely to be more rate increases over the next few days,” said Aaron Strutt, product director at mortgage broker Trinity Financial.
“Fixed rates are driven by future funding costs rather than today’s Bank Rate alone, so lenders do not need to wait for an actual base rate rise before withdrawing products or increasing pricing,” explained Nicholas Mendes, mortgage technical manager at John Charcol.
“I would expect more short-notice rate withdrawals over the coming days, and potentially some lenders temporarily stepping back while markets remain this unsettled.”
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