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Rising rates, falling rates

28th March 2008 | back to article listings BACK    print this article PRINT

As pre-emptive strikes go, few might indicate more strongly an expectation that interest rates will be cut next month than news today that both Nationwide and Halifax are raising the interest rates on their tracker mortgages.

Of course, rising mortgage rates, alongside tighter lending criteria, have been a feature of the credit crunch in recent months, but the fact that two of the biggest lenders took such action on the same day may not be coincidence, least of all in the case of Nationwide.

Earlier today, Nationwide released its latest monthly house price figures, showing a fifth successive monthly fall in house prices, a dip of 0.6 per cent compared with 0.5 per cent in February. This has brought the annual rate of house price inflation down to just 1.1 per cent, with chief economist Fionnuala Earley commenting that "a clear change in sentiment since the late summer has led to the sharp slowing in house price growth, even in the less volatile three-month on three-month series".

With all this, Ms Earley predicted, would come a change in interest rates next month. Describing the minutes of the latest Bank of England monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting as "rather doveish", she added: "While recognising that the MPC still had a difficult path to tread, were perhaps more accepting of room for a cut in rates sooner rather than later." She suggested that now the potential negative interpretation that a back-to-back rate reduction would mean inflation having a lower priority than growth has been avoided, along with the recent HBOS false rumour scare and the Bear Stearns collapse, would prompt the change.

Reuters noted today that its poll of economists last week also expected a rate cut, with more to follow until the base rates fall as low as 4.5 per cent next year. Like Nationwide, its surveyed experts has also predicted an overall fall in house prices will now occur this year.

It may certainly be because of Nationwide's rate trimming expectation that it has acted to protect its profits against the lower income that would accrue from dropping mortgage payments for tracker mortgage holders. For investors, today's data indicates that where mortgages need to be taken for buy-to-let deals, care should be taken to find what is best as lenders seek to secure profits. At the same time, if prices are falling, this does open up the prospect of greater affordability, something anyone looking to buy, be they buy-to-let investors or residential housebuyers, can look forward to.

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