Bank of England Base Rate Held

This months’ hold confirms that we are now at the bottom of the interest rate cycle, so borrowers and potential buyers need to be careful not to miss the boat.

The current strategy of quantitative easing, coupled with higher than expected recent inflation figures, means the base rate could be raised later this year to counter an inflationary threat. What this means is that time is running out for people to lock into historically low fixed rates, which are based on expected future, rather than current, Bank rate.

The window of cheap money that we are in could soon be closed.

There is a growing feeling that, from a mortgage and property market perspective, things are about as good as they will get.

As we have seen with HSBC this week, lenders are beginning to get more competitive at 90% LTVs and the consensus is that if house prices have further to fall, it won’t be by too much, which is perhaps reflected in the growing number of mortgage approvals.

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