Mortgage News, Insights & Advice
All the latest UK mortgage news, insights and advice from the world of mortgage lending and Oportfolio
UK House Prices Hold Steady in February: Halifax House Price Index
The latest Halifax House Price Index report for February 2025 shows that UK house prices remained largely stable over the month, dipping by just -0.1%, following a +0.6% increase in January. The average property price now stands at £298,602, a marginal decrease of...
First-Time Buyer Mortgages UK: Leeds & Virgin Cut Rates
The UK mortgage market has received a welcome boost this week as Leeds Building Society and Virgin Money both announce significant rate reductions, aiming to support first-time buyers and homeowners looking for better deals. But with rising property prices, high...
New Low Barclays Mortgage Rates Of 3.96% Announced
Barclays Bank has announced a new wave of mortgage rate reductions, with some products falling below 4% for the first time in months. As of the 4th of March 2025, the bank has lowered rates across a range of mortgage products, including its Green Home five-year...
What is a LTV (Loan To Value) Mortgage?
When looking into getting a mortgage, whether it's your first or the 31st, you will undoubtedly come across the phrase loan to value. But what what does loan to value mean in mortgage terms? In this blog we will go through the ins and outs of loan to values and the...
2023 Is The Year For First-Time Buyer Mortgages
Yes, you did read that headline right. No, we aren't completely out of our minds. Just hear us out...ok? 2023 is the year for first-time buyer mortgages and purchases in general. This might sound like a strange conclusion to come to if you have been following the...
Nationwide Mortgage Rates Take Huge Cut
In a message sent out to all mortgage intermediaries (brokers) yesterday, Nationwide announced a huge rate reduction to some of their mortgage products. The intermediary arm of the building society announced that they would be making some big changes to standard...
Santander Mortgage Offer Extension Coming To An End
In a new year message sent out to all registered mortgage brokers in the first week of January, Santander gave a round-up of how they have supported brokers and borrowers with their mortgage applications in 2022. Last year was a difficult year in the UK for many...
House Growth Slowed At End Of 2022
Now that we are into our first week of 2023, lenders, estate agents, solicitors, mortgage brokers and other property professionals are starting to release data that they have collected throughout the year. 2022 was a very challenging year for property...in fact, the...
Buying A House In Cash vs A Mortgage
Owning a property outright with no mortgage is a dream for a lot of people. Most people who buy property in the UK, for residential purposes or for investment purposes such as buy-to-lets, will need to take out a mortgage loan. With the average price of a property in...
House Purchases Up 12%. Good Sign For 2023?
In a time where doom and gloom dominates the headlines and all anyone seems to want to talk about is how badly damaged the UK economy is, this update from HMRC this week almost made me quite literally jump for joy. You would have to be living under a rock to not know...
Could I Be In Negative Equity With A 95% Mortgage?
This week it was announced by the UK government that the 95% mortgage guarantee scheme would continue to be rolled our for a further 12-months after a successful 20 month run since April 2021 and helping an estimated 24,000 low deposit buyers to secure a mortgage....
Broker Says…Unsure What To Do With Your Mortgage?
Today is the first blog in our new series 'Broker Says'. In this blog our senior mortgage and protection advisor Jade Pinkerton discusses the topic "Are you unsure what to do with your mortgage?". Millions of people across the country are mortgage owners and that...
New 95% Mortgage Scheme Announced
A new 95% mortgage scheme for new build homes has been announced. The scheme will be a collaboration between Country Durham based intermediary The Darlington Building Society and Own New and will focus on helping new build buyers purchase with as little at 5% deposit...
Forces Help To Buy Is Here To Stay
The UK government have announced that the armed forces help to buy scheme will be made a permanent fixture in the UK property purchase market after 8 successful years. The scheme, which was introduced in 2014, was initially going to be a 3 year pilot scheme. But as...
New Years Resolution? Get Financially Organised.
And so 2022 has come to an end. This year has been an incredibly tough year for many people. The UK has seen a financial crisis and a cost of living crisis, not experienced for years, and even the more financially stable people have had to look at their finances to...
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