Home loans available at First Direct again
First Direct, part of the HSBC banking group, has started selling mortgages again to new customers, six weeks after it called a temporary halt.
It stopped offering them on 1 April after being deluged by new applicants as the mortgage drought took hold.
Meanwhile the Halifax has become the latest big lender to cut the interest rates on some of its mortgage deals.
From Wednesday it will reduce some offers by 0.15%, but only for existing borrowers seeking to re-mortgage.
Last week, two of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders, the Abbey and the Nationwide, made slight cuts to the interest rates on some of their home loans.
Nationwide lending sharply down
The value of mortgages agreed by the Nationwide building society fell 40% last year as tough credit conditions led it to scale back lending.
It agreed mortgage loans worth £6.7bn, down from £11.2bn the year before, describing its lending policy as “conservative and sustainable”.
The figures are in line with industry forecasts for a sharp reduction in total mortgage lending this year.
Nationwide also reported a 5% rise in annual profits to £686.1m.
Profits were boosted by a sharp rise in retail deposits placed with the building society.
Risk profile
Lenders have scrapped hundreds of deals in response to the credit crunch.
Whilst the environment will remain challenging, the market now has a much more transparent and realistic view of the cost of risk
Graham Beale, Nationwide chief executive