Coreco were in the press over the weekend talking about the fact that mortgage rates could well increase over the coming weeks.
In fact, we are already seeing this happen, especially as we have seen SWAP rates increasing steadily with the cost of 2-year money now back over 1% for the first time since November 2015.
Here is a nice graph showing the recent rises:
We have now seen lenders such as Halifax, Scottish Widows, Nationwide, and Accord amongst others who have put a selection of rates up, and whilst some such as Barclays and HSBC are holding fire, for now, it won’t be long until they join the throng.
There was good news that official figures suggested that the number of 1st Time Buyers had hit their highest level in 10 years, with some 365,000 buying their first home last year. UK Finance also showed that the average First-Timer was age 30 with an income of £41,000.
Meanwhile, it was interesting to see the first digital mortgage broker to finally throw in the towel Burrow did so because “the cost of acquiring each customer outweighed the revenue they could generate”. Others have struggled with a pure online-only model and all now have a mortgage broker as the central part of their offering.
They have also seemed to have struggled to win the trust of lenders around their experience in the industry and whilst things are definitely changing in our field, a traditional, experienced brokerage adding technology on top, (such as Coreco of course), looks set to be at the forefront of the industry.
At present, 2-year fixes are available at 1.19%, (3.78% APRC) and 5-year fixes from 1.74%, (3.12% APRC) whilst variable tracker rates are around from 1.24%, (3.55% APRC).
Those looking at a Buy-To-Let product can still obtain products from just 1.39%, (4.23% APRC) for a 2-year fix.