Two high street lenders have reversed their recent rate cuts. Abbey has reversed cuts it made to mortgage rates two weeks ago and The Woolwich, the Barclays owned mortgage provider, has followed suit. 

The Abbey is raising rates on new fixed-rate deals by between 0.15% and 0.56% from 29 May while the Woolwich is putting up the cost of some new two-year fixed-rate deals sold through intermediaries by 0.1% and some 10-year fixed-rate deals by up to 0.3%.

Both Abbey and the Woolwich have blamed rising inter-bank borrowing costs, the key to mortgage rates, for the most recent changes.

Meanwhile, a survey shows that the average mortgage deal is now on offer for only 11 days, down from 30 days a year ago. In April, the average shelf life was down to just six days.

This suggests that people holding mortgage offers should make their decisions quickly, although without allowing themselves to be bounced into unsuitable deals.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 6:12 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.