Rightmove comment on Bank Rate hold

Commenting on today’s Bank Rate hold, Matt Smith, Rightmove’s mortgage expert says:

“Now that this expected interest rate hold is out of the way, all eyes are on May’s decision where the current forecast is a second cut of the year. Since the last decision in February, average mortgage rates have trickled downwards slightly but pretty much stayed flat. We’re seeing lenders try to price competitively where they can to capture business during some of the busiest months of the year for home-moving. However, there currently isn’t much wiggle room for lenders to offer cheaper rates, and hopefully a second cut can spur forward another wave of falling rates, and bring average rates closer to 4% rather than 5%.

“Some lenders may have also priced their products to manage volumes of new cases, as they try to protect their operational capacity at the start of the year to process as many completions as they can ahead of the Stamp Duty deadline. As the Stamp Duty deadline will pass soon, they could then release this capacity, and as a result we may see some lenders start to price even more competitively.”