If you applied for a mortgage in the past few weeks but haven't completed yet....

K_S

Over the last 10 days, since the bank-rate rise on 3rd Nov, many lenders across the breadth of the market (mainstream, adverse, BTL, small building societies, etc.) have reduced the cost of mortgages for both new business (purchase and re-mortgage) and existing customers (product-switches).

This spans fixed, tracker and discount products and has been in many different forms including reductions in fixed rates, lower fees, increased/new cash back, lower tracker margins (i.e. a lower premium over the bank rate), lower discount rates (i.e. a higher discount from the lender's SVR), etc.

So if you applied for a product (which is usually when a rate is secured) after the post mini-budget rate hikes but haven't completed yet, it may be worth dropping a note to your broker or speaking to the lender to see if your lender has lowered the costs applicable to you and whether you can switch. It's unlikely to be a huge drop (if any) but over the fix might save you a tidy sum of money.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/11/cheapest-fixed-mortgage-deals-dip-below-5----lowest-rate-in-a-mo/

simon_or

Do you think tracker and discounted variable rates going to get any better? And are these tracker changes also happening in buy to let mortgages?

K_S

simon_or said:

Do you think tracker and discounted variable rates going to get any better? And are these tracker changes also happening in buy to let mortgages?

@simon_or I would think so. Skipton is coming out with a +0.39% resi-tracker tomorrow, albeit with a hefty fee so more suitable for high value mortgages. They're also releasing a BTL tracker which I expect to be similarly competitive.

On the BTL side, TMW already have +0.09% trackers, albeit with a very high fee, as well as higher margin but still very competitive trackers.

Similarly with discounts, building societies have been reducing their margins over the past two weeks and there are plenty of discount BTL products well south of 4%. I expect that to continue assuming nothing goes crazy in the wider market.

simon_or

I had no idea that the BTL trackers were this decent. I checked Skipton and it's bank rate plus 0.45pc which is fantastic. The fee is high but suits a London mortgage. Hopefully it'll be the same or better in 6 months time.

Big_Rock

Any news on trackers with NatWest when they will be back , they have pulled all back 

K_S

@big_rock NatWest have updated their product guide today and lowered some fixed rates. However, no sign of the trackers coming back yet.

It's no big loss though as they aren't particularly competitive (compared to what's available in the whole of market now) and also involve an ERC (which most other lenders' trackers don't have). So they might be working on a new tracker product which is competitive before they release it or perhaps decide they don't need to.

Big_Rock said:

Any news on trackers with NatWest when they will be back , they have pulled all back