The residential mortgaging market has seen its strongest July in a decade, according to new figures from UK Finance.
The findings reveal that there were 46,900 new homeowner remortgages in July. That’s an increase of over 23% on the previous month.
In the same period, homeowners borrowed £8.7bn in total, resulting in a 26% increase year-on-year.
When the Bank of England increased the base rate by 0.5% in August, this was quickly followed by mortgage lenders increasing their interest rates.
It’s thought that the growth in remortgaging could be a result of homeowners rushing to lock themselves into an affordable deal and protect themselves from repayment increases if rates are to increase even further.
In September, the Bank decided to postpone any further increases, but economists are predicting a volatile economy in 2019 as a result of Brexit uncertainty.
As a result, homeowners nearing the end of their fixed-rate deals would be wise to compare mortgages if they haven’t already. By finding an affordable mortgage deal and locking yourself into a two, five or even 10-year deal, you could protect yourself from further interest rate fluctuations and ensure your monthly expenses are predictable and manageable.
Commenting on the latest UK Finance statistics, Jackie Bennett, director of mortgages at UK Finance, said: “The residential remortgaging market saw its strongest July in over a decade, as homeowners pre-empted the latest Bank of England rate rise by locking into attractive fixed-rate deals.
“There was also considerable growth in remortgaging in the buy-to-let sector, showing that while recent tax and regulatory changes are impacting on new purchases, many existing landlords remain in the market.”
If you’d like to remortgage your home, whether it’s to protect yourself against interest rate rises, to free up equity within your property or use savings to pay off a larger portion of your debt, please get in touch with the team at TaylorMade.