Historically it has always been tough to buy your first property as an average first time buyer. Earning enough as a young professional to borrow a large enough mortgage, saving a large enough deposit whilst also paying rent every month, and generally getting your...

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information on the internet at the moment, surrounding the property market and mortgages. Are rates coming up or going down? Are property prices falling or rising still? Is the property market stagnating or thriving? The simple...

Mortgage lender Scottish Widows have just announced that they will be introducing some changes to their mortgage income cap for affordability calculations on straight mortgages and remortgages. What does this mean exactly? It means that Scottish Widows will be...

Despite the Bank of England raising the country's base rate to 4.25% at the end of March 2023, it seems that this hasn't really deterred UK mortgage lenders from continuing with rate reductions. Mortgage rates sky-rocketed at the end of 2022 as the Bank of England...

We are only three days into April 2023 and we are already seeing lots of lenders changing and improving their mortgage product offering. We are however also seeing a few lenders who have increased some of their rates. Why are they doing this? As we have already...

In another positive step forward for the UK mortgage market, mortgage titan HSBC have announced that as of Monday the 3rd of April they will be reducing rates on all of their initial rate products. This great move forward for the lender comes after a period of...

From data produced by the Bank of England, we can confirm that UK mortgage approvals are on the upward trend after months and months of struggle. In recent months even mortgage affordability, let alone proceeding cases, has been on a decline as the cost of living...

New research carried out has revealed that the overall cost of being a landlord and maintaining a buy-to-let mortgage has increased by 76% in the last 12-months alone, as mortgage interest rates have soared and the cost of living has gripped property investors. There...

In another very welcomed communication to mortgage brokers, Barclays bank have announced some new major Barclays mortgage rate changes to their existing products. These changes come as a welcome surprise to both advisors and borrowers after the country took another...

In a confirmation of what we at Oportfolio have been saying for a while now, another mortgage expert from property website Rightmove has announced that he believes that fixed UK mortgage rates will almost certainly go down. And we could see these rate reductions...

At Oportfolio, we are keen supporters of anyone who dedicates their life to protecting our country and our freedom as UK citizens. That's why we offer special perks and discounts on our mortgage advice whenever we help people serving in the armed forces. Today we...

A new update to capital gains tax rules coming to the UK within the next few weeks has left both professional and amateur landlords worried about a potentially crippling tax bill if and when they decide to sell a property. A new change in the law that will see the tax...