Halifax and Yorkshire BS cut rates

Halifax and Yorkshire Building Society have both announced cuts in mortgage interest rates.

From tomorrow, Halifax is reducing rates on 16 products by up to 0.3%. Bank of Scotland, which is also part of the HBOS group, will make cuts across 29 of its home loans.

In the case of Halifax, two-year fixed rates are not affected, as these were reduced last week.

However, the lender’s three and five-year fixed rates and its two-year tracker rate will fall by up to 0.18%. Fees and loan to value ratios remain unaltered.

Meanwhile, Yorkshire Building Society has revamped its range and added a two-year fixed-rate mortgage at 4.99%.

However, the base rate busting deal includes an arrangement fee of 3%.

The building society says this product is aimed at those who want to keep their repayments as low as possible, because 2.75% of the fee can be added to the loan even if the maximum 75% loan to value has been borrowed.

There is an overpayment option for those whose fortunes improve and the society is also offering a two-year fix with no arrangement fee at 6.79%.

In the past fortnight a number of lenders, including Halifax, Abbey, Cheltenham & Gloucester, Nationwide and Woolwich have reduced rates, some on more than one occasion.

Earlier this week, financial website, Moneyfacts.co.uk announced that the average rate on a two-year fix had fallen to 6.96%, down from a ten-year high of 7.08%.

Another sign that competition is returning to the market is a rise in the number of products available.

According to Moneyfacts, 3,403 products were on offer at the end of June, increasing to 3,887 in the early part of this week.

Discuss this in the Finance Markets forums

Story link: Halifax and Yorkshire BS cut rates