British homeowners are shunning away from long-term fixed-rate mortgages despite the fact many lenders have been campaigning for the deals ahead of a possible rise in interest rates.
Mortgageassess, the online services established jointly by the LIA, SOFA and CII is now fully up and running.
Take-up of buy-to-let mortgages rose by almost half in 2003, however, the buy-to-let sector still makes up only 5% of the total mortgage market, according to figures presented by the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
Mortgage lenders have been told in a letter from the FSA there is little evidence of abuse of self-certification mortgage applicants as firms have good controls to prevent against fraud.
A change to the wording of Scottish Equitable Protect underwriting should cut premiums on key types of mortgage-related critical illness policy by up to 30%.
Abbey for Intermediaries has cut the interest rate two and five-year fixed-rate mortgage range by upto 0.25% in a bid to make the deals more attractive to customers.
Bristol & West (B&W) economist Laurence Sanders predicts the Bank of England's base rate will peak at 5.5% by December 2005, before falling back to a rate of 4.5% one year later.