Mortgage rates has fallen very slightly in the last week, said Rightmove.

The property portal found that rates for borrowers with a significant 40% deposit were down.

A two-year fixed rate up to 60% of the property’s value is 4.45%, down from 4.46% last week. For context this is still much higher than a year ago, when the equivalent rate was 2.42%.

Five-year fixed rates up to 60% loan-to-value are now 4.12%, down from 4.13% a week ago. This compares to 2.47% a year ago.

Low deposit mortgages

For borrowers with just a 10% deposit, rates have also fallen very slightly.

A two-year fixed rate up to 90% of the property’s value is 5.04%, down from 5.08% last week. For context this is still higher than 12 months ago, when the equivalent rate was 2.71%.

Five-year fixed rates up to 90% loan-to-value are now 4.67%, down from 4.69% a week ago. This compares to 2.91% a year ago.

Rightmove’s mortgage expert Matt Smith, said: “Despite the challenges posed by the unexpected news that inflation remains stubbornly high, which is impacting the underlying funding costs of fixed-rate mortgages, the resilience of lenders and desire to compete for business has seen average rates for mortgage products continue to fall this week across most Loan-to-Value (LTV) ranges, albeit at a much slower rate.

“Competition between lenders remains strongest in the traditional first-time-buyer loan-to-value ranges. The biggest fall is in the 90% LTV 2-year fixed rate product range, which has dropped by 0.4 percentage points this week.

“However, there are signs that lenders are facing increasing pricing pressures, as we have seen an increase in 95% LTV five-year fixed rates. This is in part due to the relatively small number of lenders active in this space, which means that the average can be influenced by one or two lenders increasing rates.

“Looking forward, it is likely that we will see lenders continue to try to hold the line on rates as competition remains the focus while they await the next Base Rate decision on 11 May. Despite this, we could see some rate increases in the meantime.”