A battle to win a slice of the housing market revival has seen five mortgage lenders announce a new round of home loan price cuts.
Barclays, HSBC, Halifax, Santander and NatWest are all making a number of interest rate reductions across mortgage deals for first-time buyers, people who are remortgaging and buy to let landlords.
Research by property portal Rightmove said a first-time buyer taking out a five-year fix on a loan of around £225,000 is typically paying £1,085 a month, which is a saving of £92 a month compared to a year ago.
And even bigger savings are now on the table with a new round of mortgage rate cuts which mean the lowest five-year fix has come down from 4.28 percent to 3.69 percent in recent weeks.
At the same time some mortgage brokers suggest that the cost of a five-year fix could drop to around 3 percent by the end of this year.
Separately finance giants such as the Nationwide have relaxed lending rules and are now letting first-time buyers borrow up to six times their salary and take out loans of up to £750,000.
Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Client, said: “This ongoing rate war among lenders is great news for borrowers as there are some really compelling deals being launched, which will go some way to helping affordability.”
Barclays has announced a whole raft of cuts primarily benefiting first-time buyers and home movers, including a number of sub 4 percent deals for those with the biggest deposits. For example, its lowest two-year fix for buyers with a 40 pe cent deposit or more, is down to 3.99 percent from today.
Barclays is also reducing rates across its springboard and mortgage guarantee products aimed at first-time buyers struggling to raise a deposit.
These allow family or friends to provide a 10 percent deposit as security for five years and it is placed into a Helpful Start account that earns interest and is returned after five years.
HSBC is cutting interest rates on its two-year and five-year fixed mortgages for both home movers and first time-buyers by up to 0.25 percentage points. As a result, its lowest five-year fix for those remortgaging with at least a 40 percent equity is now priced at 3.83 percent.
HSBC has also made further reductions in the higher loan-to-value ranges for first-time-buyers, offering 4.16 percent to those fixing for five years with a 20 percent deposit. The deal also offers £350 cashback.
Halifax is cutting mortgage rate on selected products by up to 0.11 percentage points for home movers and first-time buyers. Rates for people who are remortgaging are being reduced by up to 0.24 percentage points.
Santander and NatWest are also cutting rates across a wide range of range of new loans from today. It means Santander will offer a five-year fix for home buyers purchasing with the biggest deposits at just 3.68 percent.
NatWest is also executing some healthy cuts across fixed rate deals aimed at home buyers, remortgagers and landlords.
