A SUMMER surge in re-mortgaging saw home owners flock to beat rising interest rates, figures showed.
July 2018 saw 46,900 new home owner re-mortgages completed - up more than 23 per cent from a year ago, said trade association UK Finance.
The surge followed speculation about interest rate hikes, with the Bank of England raising its base rate from 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent in August. That pushed up costs for some home owners on variable rate mortgage deals.
The total amount of re-mortgaging that took place in July was £8.7 billion.
Jackie Bennett, director of mortgages at UK Finance, said: "The residential re-mortgaging market saw its strongest July in over a decade, as home owners pre-empted the latest Bank of England rate rise by locking into attractive fixed-rate deals."
Figures also show 14,700 new buy-to-let re-mortgages were completed in July - up more than seven per cent from a year ago.
Meanwhile, 31,400 new first-time buyer mortgages were handed out in July - up one per cent. The average first-time buyer is 30 with £42,000 gross household income.
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