Ten million Brits looking to remortgage

After two quick-fire increases in interest rates, almost ten million Britons are looking to remortgage between now and February.

That is according to new research from Egg, which shows the majority of homeowners are looking to switch to a fixed-rate mortgage in the next three months.

After fixed-rate mortgage deals, which 60 per cent of those questioned said they were thinking about moving to, variable rate mortgages were the next most popular (11.8 per cent), followed by discount-rate mortgages (7.8 per cent) and tracker-rate mortgages (5.8 per cent).

But with the average two-year fixed-rate deal charging 5.48 per cent interest and the average interest rate for a two-year discounted-rate mortgage at 5.16 per cent, there are huge benefits to finding the right deal.

And moving to a cheap deal rather than an average one can save thousands of pounds.

"With thousands of mortgages to choose from, the market is extremely competitive so it pays for people to shop around for the best deal," said Simon Musselle, head of mortgages, Egg.

"On a £200,000 mortgage, taking out our new two-year fixed rate deal [at 4.74 per cent], as opposed to an average two-year fixed-rate mortgage, would reduce your interest repayments by £1,479.96 a year for the first two years."

Regionally, London had the greatest number of people looking to change their mortgage deal.

Some 28 per cent of Londoners are looking to take out a new mortgage in the next three months, with Scots the next most likely to re-mortgage (26 per cent).

Residents of the south-east, East Anglia, and the north-west are next keenest to change their mortgage deal (23 per cent), with 19 per cent of Midlanders and residents of the south-west and Wales planning on remortgaging.

The least likely people in Britain to re-mortgage are those in the north-east and Yorkshire and the Humber - where 17 per cent of people are planning on changing lender. XXX