Let's hope the market will begin to move now !
DAILY MAIL INFO 17th July. Relief in the mortgage market as lenders finally start lowering rates.
Mortgage lenders have finally started to cut their rates - bringing welcome relief for homeowners.
Nationwide will tomorrow deliver its second reduction in a week, cutting annual payments for an average borrower by a total of £550.
Their move follows six months of gloom in the mortgage market in which deals have reached their highest levels for a decade.
Relief: Mortgage lender Nationwide has announced it will cut up to 0.46 percentage points off its rates on Friday
Experts said yesterday they hoped the worst of the mortgage drought was over and that June would go down as the market's nadir.
Tomorrow the Nationwide will cut up to 0.46 percentage points off its mortgage rates.
Other lenders, such as Abbey, Woolwich and even the nationalised Northern Rock, have cut rates over the last seven days.
For homeowners, particularly those who need to remortgage in the next few months, the move will come as an enormous relief.
Thousands have been worrying that they will not be able to afford their new mortgage because of sky-high rates.
On July 8, the rate for a two-year fixed mortgage for up to 75 per cent of a property's value stood at 6.65 per cent with the Nationwide.
The rate will drop to 6.18 per cent, saving £45 a month, or £540 a year, from the costs of repaying an average £155,000 loan.
Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at the mortgage broker John Charcol, said: 'We are now seeing some relief for homeowners.'
Nationwide is cutting the majority of its fixed and tracker mortgages for people who are buying a house or who need to remortgage.
The average cut is 0.24 percentage points, but all of its two-year fixed rate loans for remortgaging are coming down by 0.4 percentage points.
David Hollingworth, from the mortgage broker London & Country, said he is hopeful that other lenders will follow.
Over the past few months, lenders have been desperate not to lend money, and have been frantically withdrawing any rate which looks competitive.
But this has changed.
'We are starting to see jostling between the lenders,' said Mr Hollingworth.
'We have finally got a competitive spirit back into the market.'
Smaller lenders, such as Principality Building Society, have also cut their rates, and Market Harborough yesterday launched an attractive two-year 5.99 per cent fixed rate.
Nationwide said it was able to cut rates because swop rates - those at which the major financial institutions lend to each other - have fallen, chiefly because analysts foresee more stability in the base rate or even a downward trend ahead.
Over the last month, two-year swop rates have fallen from about 6.5 per cent to 5.8 per cent, so fixed-rate loans have dropped too.
Ministers faced calls to reform stamp duty and scrap home information packs yesterday as they unveiled a 'rent before you buy' scheme for first time buyers.
Families with incomes under £60,000 will be able to lease a new home at 20 per cent below market rates for up to three years.
At the end of the tenancy, it is hoped that they will have saved enough for a deposit to buy a part share in the housing association-owned property.
The idea is to help those with no savings following the withdrawal of 100 per cent mortgages in the credit crunch.
But shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said: 'If ministers were really serious about helping people get on the housing ladder, then they would scrap stamp duty for nine out of ten first-time buyers and abolish Hips.
Housing minister Caroline Flint also announced plans to extend a £200million scheme where the Government buys unsold new homes from house-builders and makes them available as 'affordable housing'.