Over the past few weeks, mortgage rates have been falling as banks and building societies reacted to stabilising swap rates and a need to bring borrowers through the door. And that trend show few signs of abating as more lenders slices prices for beleaguered borrowers.

Nationwide kicked the most recent cuts off at the end of August by announcing a decrease on selected fixed and tracker rates up to 0.15%. The range of products with reduced rates covered business, additional borrower, and existing customers moving home ranges.

Select two and five-year fixed rates decreased for both £999 fee and fee-free products in its business range, while people buying property for the first time will benefit too, as first-time buyer deals also fell.

The mutual has two and five-year fixed rates starting from 5.95% and 5.25% at 60% loan to value (LTV) respectively.

Swap rates environment calmer

Henry Jordan, director of home at Nationwide Building Society, said: “The current swap rate environment is enabling us to make further rate cuts across our mortgage rates and this is now the fourth time we’ve been able to reduce our rates over the last month as we look to support all types of borrowers as much as we can.”

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NatWest has also reduced rates for existing customers by up to 0.5%, while its new business range sees core residential purchase and remortgage products were lowered further by 0.55%.

Its fee-free two-year fixed rate at 95% loan to value has decreased by 0.19% to 6.78% and fee-free two-year tracker purchase product at 75 LTV have fallen by 0.55% to 6.09%.

Coventry Building Society joined the lenders in reducing rates, cutting residential rates by up to 0.45% and buy-to-let-rates by 0.28%.

Jonathan Stinton, head of intermediary relationships at Coventry Building Society, said: “We continue to reduce rates as we’re keen to provide value to customers as soon as we can. Fixed rates are still in demand, so we’ve passed on reductions to selected two, three and five-year deals, arming brokers with the range of options they need to help their clients.”

Meanwhile, TSB slashed rates across its residential, product transfer and additional borrowing range by up to 0.5% on some products. As part of this decision, product end dates move out to the end of December and two and three-year fixed house purchase rates will fall by up to 0.15%.

HSBC focussed on reducing rates for its residential mortgages, where cuts have been made in existing customer, first-time buyer products, remortgage and international resident products. Further reductions have been made on residential first-time buyer and home mover two-year fixed fee-saver deals up to 90% cent LTV and standard deals up to 85% LTV.

Leeds Building Society aimed its reductions at products targeting first-time buyers, decreasing 26 mortgage products for people getting on the property ladder for the first time.

Jonathan Thompson, senior mortgage manager at Leeds Building Society, said: “In the first half of this year, 49% of all new borrowers to Leeds Building Society were first-time buyers. The changes we have made to our mortgage range show our continued support for those looking to step onto the property ladder.

“As a key lender in the affordable housing sector, we are proud to make improvements to our shared ownership mortgage range. Shared ownership is a great solution to help aspirational homeowners to get a foothold on the property ladder as buyers need a smaller deposit, allowing them to buy sooner than they might otherwise.”

Six weeks of cuts

In its weekly briefing, online property portal Rightmove noted that rates had fallen for six straight weeks with more reductions on the way.

Rightmove’s mortgage expert Matt Smith said: “This is the sixth consecutive week we’ve seen average mortgage rates drop, and with some of the bigger lenders signalling their intention to announce further rate drops in the coming days, this will be a confidence booster for those looking to take out a mortgage soon.

“Over this six-week period we’ve seen average five-year fixed mortgages fall by 0.42 per cent, while two-year fixed rates are down by 0.33 per cent.”

He added: “More stability in the mortgage market after a topsy-turvy few months earlier in the year is a good thing for home movers, particularly as it means we are seeing lenders continuing to actively compete for business.”