Millions of homeowners will see mortgage rate rises as ‘softer’ house price growth forecast
Major banks have hiked mortgage interest rates in response to the Bank of England hiking rates 0.15 percentage points to 0.25 per cent.
Banks raised rates following the decision on Thursday, meaning millions of households will pay heftier monthly mortgage repayments.
Barclays, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, NatWest, Nationwide and Santander will pass on the increase to those with loans that track the base rate.
It was the first time the Bank raised rates in more than three years.
Some 2m homeowners are on tracker and variable rate mortgages, according to lender industry body, UK Finance. For the 850,000 mortgage borrowers who are on tracker rate mortgages, monthly repayments will jump up £15.54 on average.
Borrowers on standard variable rate mortgages – around 1.1m people – will face bill increases of around £9.58 on average.
Lawrence Bowles, director of research at Savills, said the increase came as “no surprise,” and said Savills’ latest forecasts anticipated rate rises over the course of next year.
“As such, we have estimated price growth in the near term to be somewhat more muted than we have seen of late,” he explained.
According to the latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors data, sales activity is “still running far higher than normal levels, even after moderating since the stamp duty holiday ended,” Bowles added.
The sales to stock ratio was 46 per cent in November, compared to a 2017-19 average of 34 per cent.
Bowles said: “This, combined with relatively low unemployment rates coming out of a recession, means we expect to see softer growth as opposed to something more dramatic.”
Stuart Collar-Brown, director of auction firm My Auction, predicted the rise would have “very little impact or slowdown for the residential property market.”
“Many of us will remember when interest rates were around 5.5 per cent so there is an entire generation of buyers out there who know nothing else but sub -0.25 per cent interest rate levels so they will still buy,” he added.