Halifax Intermediaries becomes latest lender to hike mortgage rates – Mortgage Strategy
Halifax Intermediaries has become to latest lender to push its rates higher, effective tomorrow (2 October).
The lender will increase prices across selected homemover and first-time buyer products by as much as 0.10% on two-, three- and five-year fixes.
For remortgage products, there will be selected rate hikes by up to 0.15% on two-, three- and five-year products.
In addition, rates will go up by up to 0.15% on selected two-, three- and five-year fixed products within product transfer and further advance ranges.
Complete by dates will be extended across each range.
Commenting on the announcement from Halifax, Trinity Financial product and communications director Aaron Strutt says: “Halifax is the latest in a long list of lenders to raise the cost of its mortgages over the last week.”
“The bank has been undercutting many of its competitors especially in the higher earning premier current account holder space as it has been offering a 4.81% two-year fix, three-year fix at 4.80% and a 4.86% five-year fix. The bank’s standard lending range has two-year fixes starting from 5.01% and the five-year fix is 5.06%. These rates are being pulled tonight.”
“It seems like Halifax will still have a couple of sub-5% fixes after these latest rate hikes but they will not be available to most of its customers.”
“This is Halifax’s sixth rate change since the 1st September which is a lot and not something that we are used to seeing. This scale of rate changes is causing a lot of stress and highlights the volatility in the money markets at the moment.”
“We literally have a few sub-5% rates left and I doubt they will be around much longer.”
The rate hikes from Halifax comes after Barclays announced it will be increasing rates for the second time this week, meaning some deals will have seen a total increase of 40 basis points since Monday.
