Halifax makes more upwards changes to rates
July 12, 2008
Last week the high street lender, Halifax, announced that it was making its twentieth set of changes to interest rates on its mortgage products since the start of this year, with rates on many of its mortgages being pushed up, spelling bad news for new borrowers looking for a good deal. First time buyers and those looking to remortgage will now have to deal with higher monthly repayments, with rates going up even though the base rate has been on hold at 5% since April following three rate cuts in relatively quick succession.
The Halifax has said that the interest rate on over half of its thirty one fixed rate mortgages will be going up by up to 0.5%. Five of the thirty two tracker rate mortgages will see interest rates go up by up to 0.3%. This puts the cheapest two year fixed rate deal at 6.99%, which is way more than the leading two year fixed rate deals on the market. Industry officials have said that given the trend in rising interest rates, further fuelled by worries that the Bank of England may raise the base rate in coming months, those looking to get a mortgage or remortgage should start looking around as soon as possible for a suitable deal.
One official from the Halifax spoke about the recent announcement over the rate hikes, stating: “Over the past few weeks, most major lenders have increased their pricing on a number of occasions. Wholesale money is very expensive. In addition, swap rates have moved up in recent weeks – that means that fixed rates have become more expensive. Unfortunately, these increased costs have to be passed on to new customers by banks and building societies. Pricing is going up in just five out of 32 within the tracker range, and within the fixed range over half remain unchanged.”
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