Copy article

The Times mortgage story....

ended 27. September 2022

A journalist at The Times is writing a piece, you guessed it, on the crazy mortgage market. He wants anecdotes and tales of what's going on today that is of interest. Is it calmer than yesterday or just as frantic? What's going on? Go go go… 

12 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Star Quote
Copy

Ashley Thomas
Director at Magni Finance
Digital Mortgages are pulling all their rates with immediate effect. The email was sent at 12pm stating that they have tempoarily stopped with no notice.
Copy

Editor
Wesley Davidson
Director at Fox Davidson
Lenders continue to withdraw rates making it difficult to keep up. Yesterday and today have been frantic for rate pulls. The frequency of the rate rises are unprecedented. This morning I started to key an application for a 10-year buy-to-let mortgage at 5.09%. Just after 9am the lender emailed to advise the rate was pulled and was being replaced by a rate at 6.99%. These changes are about to have a huge knock-on effect for the housing market. Having said that, September will be our busiest month of the year for volume of cases, as clients rush to lock in fixed rates.
Copy

Editor
Imran Hussain
Director at Harmony Financial Services
The mortgage market is pretty much the Wild West right now. The pound is falling and lenders are waiting for everything to settle down before repricing. Some will pull and reintroduce products at the drop of a hat for the next few weeks. I've never seen anything like it.
Copy

Editor
Emma Jones
Managing Director at Whenthebanksaysno.co.uk
The mortgage market is as crazy as it was when the pandemic hit with many of the high street lenders pulling products with emails confirming this is due to "volatility in the markets". We need some stability now. This is a concerning time for borrowers and with the cost of living already impacting budgets, further sharp hikes in interest rates could be crippling for many households. We have had some of the specialist lenders join the pack in removing products, such as Zephry Home Loans and Landbay. Pepper Money are reviewing lending rates tonight. There is a lot of pressure on contacting lenders with last minute applications being submitted because of the rumour of more withdrawls expected.
Copy

Editor
Mike Staton
Director at Staton Mortgages
I watched House of Dragons last night, the more I watch it the more it reminds me of the current mortgage market. To be honest, I'd rather be thrown to the Dragons than listen to more excuses of why more misery needs to be piled onto the British public. Lenders making decisions that are plucked out of nowhere seem to be a trend to the panic we are seeing at the moment, unfortunately a lot of applications are "subject to underwriters discretion", luckily we have a team of brokers that are good enough to fight these decisions, we have already seen three decline decisions or maximum lend decisions overturned this morning with various lenders. This gives us more evidence that brokers are key to assisting people in this treacherous market at the moment. We need to dismiss the one-size-fits-all attitude that many still have with the mortgage market and realise there are hundreds of lenders offering thousands of product with thousands of different rules.
Copy

Editor
Rob Peters
Principal at Simple Fast Mortgage
Mortgage lenders have effectively called time-out, and will sit on the side-lines until the direction of the economy is more certain. the mis-alignment of political tax cuts on BoE monetary policy is sending mixed messages to the markets resulting in turmoil. Lenders need to know how to price their products and with the pound and gilt rates dropping suddenly it is very hard for them to do so. Hopefully this is short-term, and we will see some return to normality soon.
Copy

Jonathan Burridge
Founding Adviser at We Are Money
I have had a vendor withdraw their property from the market citing "the pound fluctuation". Difficult call I would suggest because if the market goes to hell in a handbasket they have lost a bird in hand, if you forgive mixing of metaphors.
Copy

Rhys Schofield
Brand Director at Peak Mortgages and Protection
It actually seems a bit calmer so far today. I think everyone was stressing about what the MPC was going to do with a surprise increase in rates but this didn't materialise. We are certainly busy with people looking to secure a fixed rate early, though. Taking the hit with a 1% early redemption charge could well be a sensible move in the long run if you think rates are going to be a few percent higher when your remortgage actually becomes due.
Copy

James Miles
Director - Mortgage Adviser at The Mortgage Quarter
My inbox is inundated with anxious borrowers asking whether they should be paying their Early Repayment Charges to secure a deal before rate rises make their payments unaffordable. Many clients have never known rates to be as high as they are now and are very concerned how they’re going to pay. With rates continuing to increase it’s making energy price increases look like a drop in the ocean. Despite this it’s not the time to panic. Talk to your broker about your position.
Copy

Michael O'Brien
Managing Director at Home of Mortgages
Our message is clear: 'Keep calm and seek advice'. To put this into context, two lenders pulled interest rates yesterday from over 120 lenders we have access to. The market is not in the position it was back in 2008, first time buyers can still purchase with a 5% deposit. No doubt about it, the cost of borrowing is increasing, however, faced with the alternative of an ever-increasing cost of renting, a mortgage is still a more comfortable alternative. The cost of exiting a fixed rate deal is very rarely the best advice. Lenders generally apply early repayment charges of between 3% and 5% of the loan which would need to be paid when exiting a mortgage deal during a fixed rate period. On a mortgage loan of £250,000 the early repayment charge will amount to between £7,500 & £12,500. Borrowers coming out of fixed rates now, will be paying circa 4%, so why would someone exit a 2% fixed rate, pay an early repayment charge to jump onto a 4% rate, in order to avoid the 'potential' of paying a 6% rate in two years' time? i.e. a £250,000 mortgage over 25 years at 4% - £1,319.59pm and at 6% would be £1,610.75 a difference of £3,493.92 a year. Any benefit in moving rate is usually eaten up by the early repayment charge paid. As the last couple of years have shown - a lot can change between now and then, generally, keeping your current fixed rate is the best advice, whilst also reviewing your situation six months before the end of your deal.
Copy

Alastair Hoyne
CEO, Finanze Capital at Finanze Capital
The days are becoming more and more frantic but it has to plateau at some point ( I hope! And I hope its sooner rather than later!). It has been bonkers for a while with one of my mortgage brokers in 1 week having to recommend a client 5 different products as each time he made a recommendation the lender changed their product before the client could review the information agree they wanted to go ahead. Lenders are withdrawing products like crazy at the moment and with less and less notice each day. One that really stuck out to me was Fleet Mortgages who have advised today at 12:30 they will be temporarily withdrawing all Fixed Rate products due to highly volatile market conditions. And that to secure their rates Applications need to be submit by 8pm tonight, giving us only an 8 hour window. I understand why are withdrawing the rates and appreciate them giving us notice but 8 hours isn’t long at all it just shows how volatile the market is right now. I am sure they will not be the only lender to do this either. They have further announced they will only relaunch a full product range once the market has stabilised.
Copy

Michael Aldridge
Director at Lucra Mortgages
Clients are approaching in their droves, panicked by the news of rate withdrawals. In one such instance willing to pay circa £40,000 penalty in order to secure a rate now and this from a client who works in the financial markets. Lenders are pulling rates with little or no notice which further fans the flames and panic, the latest (as I write) being HBSC who have just withdrawn all 'new business Residential and Buy to Let products' with immediate effect. However they have said that ' these products will be available again from tomorrow, Wednesday 28th September' - at what rate we shall see but if it's anything like the jump we saw from Nationwide then it will be a significant shock to many.