Pre-tax profits drop to £1.6bn between January and March, down from £2.3bn last year Business live – latest updates Lloyds Banking Group has suffered a 28% drop in first-quarter profits amid tough competition for mortgages and savings, but bosses said they expected those pressures to soon ease, helped by an improving UK economy. The country’s largest mortgage lender, which also owns the Halifax brand, said pre-tax profits dropped to £1.6bn between January and March, having fallen from £2.3bn last year when rising interest rates boosted the lender’s profits by almost 50 ..read more

Borrowers urged not to panic as banks including Barclays, NatWest and HSBC readjust cost of loans At least five leading lenders increased rates on their fixed mortgage deals on Tuesday in response to “market uncertainty”, adding to pressure on homebuyers and those looking to remortgage. Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Accord Mortgages (part of Yorkshire building society) and Leeds building society have all upped the cost of some fixed-rate deals. In some cases these have risen by up to 0.4 percentage points ..read more

The prospect of home loan rates staying high for longer is not the tonic for lenders’ financial results it once was Mortgage borrowers who had been holding out for more affordable rates had their hopes dashed last week, as disappointing economic data raised the likelihood of borrowing costs staying higher for longer. A drop in the annual rate of inflation to 3.2% in March fell only just short of City expectations for a drop to 3.1%, but that was enough to prompt investors to trim their bets on an imminent cut to interest rates. Financial markets, which had until recently been pricing in a firs ..read more

Some Britons are aiming to cut their mortgage costs and lower stress levels by moving to a smaller property When Richard Wise* moved from London to Margate in Kent three years ago, he did not expect to move again any time soon. But the music industry manager and his partner are planning to downsize from a four- to a three-bedroom property after their mortgage rate quadrupled. “After Liz Truss’s bombshell [the September 2022 mini-budget that led to rising mortgage rates], our mortgage repayments doubled last year,” the 40-year-old says ..read more

Drop in March leaves average price of home at £288,430, says Halifax UK house prices fell in March for the first time in six months as more costly mortgage deals and continued uncertainty about when the Bank of England would start cutting interest rates hit the property market. House prices fell by 1%, or £2,908, in March compared with February, according to Halifax’s house price index. The average property now costs £288,430. Compared with the same month last year, property prices were up 0.3 ..read more

Average price of home down 0.2% from February to March, to £261,142, says Nationwide The UK housing market was “subdued” in March with prices edging down on the previous month as high mortgage rates continued to affect the market, according to Nationwide building society. It is the first time in three months that house prices have fallen, after gains of 0.7% in the previous two months ..read more

High property prices and rising interest rates and living costs are hindering would-be homeowners, but there are options Diary of a first-time buyer: ‘Five brokers, four offers - but at last I’m a homeowner’ How to pick a mortgage and the best UK deals Dream homes for first-time buyers in England – in pictures The weather is warming up, and so too is the property market, according to some reports – which may not be music to the ears of would-be first-time buyers. The average asking price of a home in the UK has jumped by more than £5,000 (or 1.5%) in a month, according to the latest data fro ..read more

Though spending £2,000-plus a month on rent seemed ridiculous, buying a property was not an easy option How to get yourself mortgage ready How to pick a mortgage and the best UK deals I started looking into buying a property in June 2022 – partly driven by my parents, who thought the £2,040 a month I was paying in rent was ridiculous. They weren’t wrong. I knew I would love to own somewhere, but from listening to the news and what I knew of the London housing market, I thought it was out of my reach ..read more

Trying to choose between a fixed rate and a tracker, or thinking about getting help from family? Here are the options Trying to work out which mortgage is the right one for you can be daunting for anyone, but especially for a first-timer. There are more than 6,000 residential mortgage deals on the market. Here we run through some of the options and highlight some of the best rates currently on offer ..read more

A church mortgage supposed to help clergy buy their own home has turned into a huge burden for a woman who paid interest for almost 29 years The family of a vicar’s widow has accused the Church of England of behaving like a loan shark after a £55,000 mortgage it granted became a £313,000 debt – on top of monthly payments she has been making for almost 30 years. Tessa Norris* says her 84-year-old mother, Rose, has “devoted her life to the church, all on a voluntary basis” but that it is treating her, and others in a similar position, “as commodities to make money ..read more