News

2% Deal Starts Mortgage War

A MORTGAGE price war broke out yesterday after Britain’s biggest bank introduced its lowest interest rate yet. HSBC’s discount deal starts at 1.99 per cent, topping the best buy tables and giving the recovering housing market another boost.

Two other big lenders – Barclays lending arm the Woolwich, and Cheltenham & Gloucester, part of Lloyds Banking Group – immediately announced that they too would either be trimming their rates or launching new deals. News that lenders are at last untying the purse strings means would-be home buyers and movers will be able to take advantage of a rash of cheap deals as the country’s 160 banks and building societies battle to offer the lowest interest rates.