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More than 200 mortgages pulled from the market over weekend
Guest Author:
JohnFitzsimonsMore than 200 mortgages have been withdrawn since Friday, according to new data.
That represents around 4 per cent of the total number on the market, and follows 373 mortgages being pulled from the market in the week to 30 May, according to financial information site Moneyfacts.
The mortgage market upheaval follows the publication of the inflation figures for April.
While the overall consumer prices index (CPI) rate dropped from 10.1 per cent to 8.7 per cent, the core rate of CPI ‒ which excludes things like food, energy and alcohol ‒ increased from 6.2 per cent in March to 6.8 per cent in April.
As a result, expectations of further increases to the Bank of England base rate have grown.
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Since Friday, some lenders ‒ including Santander and Furness ‒ have pulled a selection of fixed rates, while Co-operative Bank has moved to withdraw its entire range.
Some lenders have relaunched fixed rate mortgage products, but at higher interest rates. For example, Halifax has hiked some of its fixed rate deals by 0.3 percentage points, while Leeds Building Society has increased selected rates by 0.4 percentage points.
Rachel Springall, finance expert at Moneyfactscompare, said that the volatility was down to “the concerns surrounding future interest rate hikes, and lenders are reassessing their propositions”.
Meanwhile, there have been warnings that more than three million borrowers face a ‘remortgaging nightmare’ as a result of the scale of interest rate rises which have taken place since they took out their initial mortgage.