Mortgage rate wars hotting up

Commenting on The Woolwich's decision to lower mortgage rates, Hannah-Mercedes Skenfield, mortgage spokesperson at moneysupermarket.com, said; "It is exciting to see yet another round of rate reductions from Woolwich, this time on their fixed rates, however the really good news is that borrowers with higher LTV requirements (up to 80 per cent) are also set to benefit.

It would seem that competition is certainly hotting up between the major players and that the impact of aggressive mortgage rates being introduced is indeed having the desired impact with the number of remortgage product searches on moneysupermarket.com noticeably increasing for the first time this year in September.

With consumer focus currently on variable rates I will be very interested to see how consumer react to the new opportunities in fixed rates and even more so in how quickly the other major lenders respond to Woolwich's latest play for an even greater share of the mortgage market."