BASE RATE UNCHANGED AT 4.50%

Peter Charles, Chief Economist at Mortgage Express, says:

As was widely expected, the Monetary Policy Committee chose to leave base rate unchanged at 4.50% at its November meeting. Given that the MPC appears to favour moving rates in those months when the Quarterly Inflation Report is published, it will now be expected that rates will remain unchanged until February. Mortgage demand has been relatively strong recently. This partly reflects greater confidence about the prospects for the housing market but also appears to reflect borrowers’ hopes that there may be further cuts in rates. With increasing evidence that rates will prove stable, or possibly even rise, mortgage demand may dampen as we go into the new year.