Further rate hikes from Halifax

Last week saw high street lender Halifax announce that it was raising the interest rates on some of its home loans by up to fifty basis points, which means that new borrowers with the lender will have to face even higher repayments if they succeed in getting a mortgage.

According to reports around nineteen of the lender’s thirty one fixed rate deals have been affected by the rate hike, and five of its thirty two tracker mortgages have also been affected. This is the twentieth set of changes that the lender has made to mortgage rates since the start of this year according to officials.

An official from the Halifax stated: “Over the past few weeks, most major lenders have increased their pricing on a number of occasions. Wholesale money is very expensive. In addition, swap rates have moved up in recent weeks – that means that fixed rates have become more expensive.”

He added: “Unfortunately, these increased costs have to be passed on to new customers by banks and building societies. Pricing is going up in just five out of 32 within the tracker range, and within the fixed range over half remain unchanged.”