In this brief mortgage rate watch article, we will be taking a look at some recent updates and communications coming from mortgage lenders this week. The first week and a bit of February 2023 has been an interesting one to watch as a mortgage broker and as potential mortgage borrowers. The Bank of England increased the base rate to 4% from 3.5%, something that many of us expected but were unsure if it would impact mortgage interest rates. The good news is that it doesn’t seem to have had much negative impact at all. In fact, more lenders have started to reduce their rates.
HSBC Rate Watch
Perhaps the most ‘exciting’ rate change to be announced this week is from HSBC. Always a good, safe lender, HSBC has been a go to bank for large loan and high LTV mortgages historically. But unfortunately HSBC was not exempt from the insane rate rises that pretty much all lenders implemented at the end of 2022, and this meant that HSBC no longer offered competitive rates. However, they announced yesterday that they would be launching a new sub 4% mortgage product!
To those who are reading this and perhaps aren’t too familiar with mortgage rates. The current average rate is between 4 and 5% with some lenders offering rates all the way up to 8-9%. Compared to mortgage rates in 2022 and previous years, these rates are very high. HSBC offering a sub 4% mortgage product signals to us that rates will continue to come down and will most likely settle at around 3-4%. A far cry from the 6,7,8% that we saw at the end of 2022.
The specifics of HSBC’s new rates are:
- 5-year fixed rate for remortgages at 3.99% to 60% loan-to-value (LTV) with a £999 fee.
Virgin Money Rate Watch
Virgin money again have been a popular to brokers for many years as the money lending arm of Richard Branson’s Virgin corporation. Although not necessarily one of the most competitively rated lenders on the market, Virgin have been a good lender for high loan to value applications. A combination of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020/2021 and the economic struggles the UK faces at the moment has lead a lot of high LTV lenders to stop their 90-95% products to reduce risk. However, today Virgin announced that they would be releasing some new 95% reduced rate products and some more competitively priced 60-85% loans. The details are as follows:
- A new 95% (loan-to-value) LTV 5-year fixed rate fee-saver will be launched at 5.09%, as well as a new 95% LTV 10-year fixed fee-saver at 5.59%, available to purchase customers only.
- 65-85% LTV fixed rates will also be reduced by up to 0.19%.
- 65-90% LTV 5-year fixed rates with £1,495 fee, reduced by up to 0.18% and available from 3.99%.
- 75-90% LTV 5-year fixed rates with £995 fee and £1,000 cashback will be reduced by up to 0.12%, and available from 4.22%.
Speak To A Mortgage Advisor About Mortgage Rates
2023 is shaping up to be a much more positive year for mortgages and mortgage rates, as you can see! If you or anyone you know is interested in discussing mortgage options in 2023, please give our team a call today for a free mortgage chat and consultation. We are here to help.
