Mortgage News, Insights & Advice
All the latest UK mortgage news, insights and advice from the world of mortgage lending and Oportfolio

Santander Early Repayment Charge Waiver for Home Movers
Santander has announced a positive change for mortgage customers looking to move home, extending the period in which they can avoid Early Repayment Charges (ERCs) when switching to a new deal. From Monday the 3rd of February 2025, Santander will waive ERCs for...

NatWest Mortgage Rates Increase: What This Means for Borrowers
NatWest has announced yet another round of mortgage rate increases, effective from the 31st January 2025 (This Friday). The changes, which impact a variety of mortgage products across its new business range, see rate hikes of between 0.02% and 0.11% on selected two-...

Barclays Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor Mortgage Boost Unveiled
Barclays has today announced the expansion of its Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor (JBSP) Mortgage Boost range, designed specifically to help struggling first-time buyers to secure larger loans in today’s challenging housing market. It is no secret that first-time...
Skipton Remove Their Residential Base Rate Tracker
In a message to brokers this morning, Skipton Building Society have announced that they will be removing their 60% loan to value (60% mortgage) residential base rate tracker products from their lending offerings. They have also announced a complete refresh of their...
Being a First Time Buyer Is Getting More Expensive
It is no secret that being a first time buyer and achieving home ownership in the UK is more difficult than it once was. In the past property prices were cheaper, mortgage lenders were more generous with their affordability checks, and 100% mortgages were commonplace...
Banks Not Accepting Mortgage Applications?
Despite only being six months into 2023, the mortgage market has certainly gone through enough changes and instability for a lifetime! Rates have increased, lenders have pulled rates and made changes to their affordability criteria to make borrowing more difficult....
Buy To Let Stress Tests Getting Even Higher
This morning NatWest Bank have announced that they will be making some major new changes to their Buy to Let stress tests. Meaning that it will become more difficult for Buy to Let landlords to get the level of lending that they need in order to finance their...
TSB Lower Mortgage Rates
In a very surprising move, TSB lower mortgage rates across their residential, buy-to-let and product transfer product offerings. This means that both new borrowers and existing TSB loan owners can get a lower rate with the Edinburgh based lender through specialist...
Nationwide Maximum Loan To Value Increase For Flats
Nationwide Building Society have announced that from the 9th of June 2023, they will be increasing the Nationwide maximum loan to value for non new build flats and apartments. What does this mean exactly? The loan to value of a property is the percentage of a property...
New Mortgage Rates UK and Average UK Rates
Today, both Nationwide Building Society and Bank of Ireland have announced new mortgage rates and products after withdrawing several existing products in the last week. The new products for Bank of Ireland are specifically for their buy-to-let mortgage offerings...
Is the UK Housing Market Improving?
Is the UK housing market improving? There is a lot of conflicting information in the news at the moment about the state of property purchase and sale in the UK. Some people are reporting that property prices are dropping rapidly due to a lack of appetite caused by the...
What Is the Average Age of a First Time Buyer In London?
The average age of a first time buyer is going up. I'm sure that is no surprise to anyone. Most people reading this article probably have stories of how their grandparents and parents bought their first house at the age of 20 for a couple of thousand pounds and will...
80% Buy-To-Let Mortgages From TMW
80% buy-to-let mortgages from TMW are back. Yes, you read that correctly. TMW, the buy-to-let arm of Nationwide Building Society have announced the re-introduction of 80% LTV buy-to-let loans to their product offerings, as well as several other positive changes to...
Huge Increases To TSB Rates
TSB have announced some surprisingly huge new increases to their interest rates this morning. As brokers, we did expect that we would see TSB rates increasing, however these new products seem to be much higher than most other lenders. The question on everyone's lips...
Coventry Return With Higher Rates
Coventry Building Society have announced a return to the market with some new higher rates, after withdrawing almost all of their existing residential products last week. For reasons that will no doubt become clearer in the next few weeks when the Bank of England's...
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