The bank has reduced rates across its range of two, three and five-year fixed repayment mortgages, for FTBs and home movers
First Direct cut the mortgage rates it is offering by up to 0.17 percentage points on Tuesday, following a slew of rate cuts by major lenders last week.
The bank has reduced rates across its range of two, three and five-year fixed repayment mortgages, for FTBs and home movers.
The reductions include a cut on a two-year fixed-rate deal for people with a 15% deposit, which is now priced at 4.99%, down from 5.16%.
Liam O’Hara, head of mortgages at First Direct said: We are pleased to be lowering our rates across our range of two, three and five-year fixed mortgages, across LTVs from 60% to 95%.
We see the highest demand for those products and today’s changes will help people making their first steps on the ladder, or those moving into their next home, O’Hara added.
Economists have predicted that the BoE base rate will be lowered from the current 16-year high of 5.25% at the next vote on August 1 – and there have already been signs of lenders’ mortgage rates dropping.
Last week, Halifax, HSBC UK, Barclays, Santander, NatWest and Yorkshire Building Society were among those to update their ranges, with some lenders reducing their mortgage rates more than once over the last couple of weeks.
Ben Merritt, the Yorkshire’s director of mortgages, said last week that market conditions had allowed it to lower rates on several products across its range.
Some commentators have also proposed that the need to generate more business and ramp up their summer sales may be motivating lenders to modify their rates.
There have also been some recent signs that the choice of mortgage products is improving.
Financial information website Moneyfacts said this week that it had counted 361 mortgage products available for people with 5% deposits at the start of July, marking the highest number since May 2022.
People looking for low deposit deals are often FTBs.