New Mortgage Deals Available from Britannia and Nationwide

The UK mortgage market is becoming more attractive for homeowners with small deposits as two UK lenders are launching high LTV deals. Britannia, which has recently merged with the Co-operative Bank, has announced the launch of a 90% LTV mortgage deal. Starting from today, June 9th, the lender offers a 2-year fix at 5.09% and a £599 fee for loans of up to 90% loan-to-value ratio. A 3-year fix at 5.59% is also available. It should be noted that high LTV deals are considered to be crucial to support first-time buyers. At the moment, only 6 mortgage deals with an LTV ratio of up to 95% offered at 6.5% and more are available on the UK mortgage market. The second lender that has announced the expansion of the LTV ratio is Nationwide, Britain’s largest building society. Starting from June 10th, Nationwide will be offering its existing customers mortgage loans of up to 95% LTV. A 2-year fix offered at 2.79% and a fee of £2,499 for loans of up to £150,000 will be available from the lender. Larger loans or smaller fees will carry higher interest rates. The lender will also extend its base-rate trackers to 95% LTV. Despite the fact that interest rates for borrowers with low deposits are falling, mortgage brokers warn cash-rich borrowers that banks are expected to increase the interest rates on other mortgage deals soon. They say it is high time to secure a fixed-rate deal now, given that 3 important UK lenders - HSBC, Chelsea and West Bromwich - have increased interest rates on most popular mortgage deals in the course of the last 3 days. Chelsea increased the interest rate on its newly launched 5-year fix from 4.34% to 4.5% on June 6th, 3 days after the deal was introduced. HSBC has withdrawn its 5-year fix offered at 4.39% yesterday, on June 8th and replaced it with a 4.99% deal. West Bromwich raised the interest rate on its 5-year fix to 5.44% on Monday, June 8th as well.