Remortgaging in Britain is at a five-year low, according to new figures released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).
Remortgaging accounted for only 30 per cent of the mortgage market by value according to the figures from September; this is a 12 per cent decrease from the same time last year.
It is believed that remortgaging has decreased in popularity as lenders are becoming more astute in retaining their customers.
The director general of the CML, Michael Coogan, commented: “The downward trends in remortgaging illustrate how lenders are reacting to competitive conditions and offering attractive retention products and policies to their customers.
“Today’s figures show that slowly but surely the market is cooling as we approach the end of the year in an environment of higher interest rates.”
The figures from the CML also demonstrated that more people are choosing variable rate mortgages, rather than fixed-rate ones, as their best mortgage rate.
In the second quarter of this year, fixed-rate mortgages accounted for 70 per cent of all loans, compared to 60 per cent in the third quarter.
This article: © Moneyexpert Ltd.