Halifax Cuts Mortgage Rates For a Third Time In a Month
Halifax the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, announced it is cutting some of its interest rates for new borrowers, the third time it has done so this month.
The changes, will come into effect on 26 July 2008, will cut the rates on 16 different deals by up to 0.3%.
the Bank of Scotland part of the Halifax is also cutting the cost of 29 different mortgages.
Halifax said the reductions were a response to the recent rate cuts by its competitors.
“We are just pricing in line with the market,” said a spokesman.
Some of the most popular sort of mortgages, those fixed for two years, are not being changed as their rates were cut the previous weekend.
But three and five-year fixed rates, and the bank’s two-year tracker rate, are coming down by as much as 0.18%.
House sales have slumped by 50% in the past year and are heading lower with mortgage approvals currently down 67% on a year ago.
Halifax denied it was desperate for business and said it still expected to account for 20% of the market.
It pointed out that it was not altering the size of the deposits it required from borrowers nor was it changing the up-front fees for each deal.
