The proportion of John Charcol’s clients remortgaging increased from 32.1% in May to 39.2% by July.
The broker believes that the remortgage market is now looking increasingly appealing to borrowers and it expects the remortgage trend within the residential market to increase in August and remain high over the next few months as the fixed rate price war takes shape.
As well as in increase in remortgages, John Charcol expects the proportion of borrowers taking fixed rates to increase in the coming months. While trackers are the natural choice in the current market where people expect rates to stay the same for a while yet, fixed rates are at all-time lows. John Charcol fully expects August’s figures to show an even higher percentage of fixed rates taken by borrowers.
“There’s no doubt that we are in the midst of a fixed rate price war as lenders start inundating the mortgage market with their newly cut rate products,” said Simon Collins, mortgage technical manager, at John Charcol.
“Even before the raft of new fixed rates, the market was becoming more competitive and remortgaging was starting to pick up again. With these new products many borrowers who are coming to the end of their current deal, can remortgage onto a five-year fixed rate that’s cheaper than their current lender’s SVR, that they are moving onto.
“Even those borrowers who have been sitting comfortably on a lender’s SVR can now realistically look to move their home loan. It’s been a long time coming.”