"We have seen a few lenders increase rates over the last few weeks, with a combination of higher swap rates, and some lenders struggling with processing their recent increased activity."
Nationwide has announced rate increases across selected two and five-year fixed rate and tracker products.
The increase in rates mean Nationwide is no longer offering sub-4% mortgage rates.
The cheapest rate available is at 4.04% for existing borrowers on a fee-free two-year fixed rate additional borrowing product.
A five-year fixed rate remortgage deal now starts from 4.19% at 60% LTV, up from a previous rate of 3.99%.
Steven Morris, advising director at Advantage Financial Solutions, commented: "Nationwide are the latest lender to reverse their fixed rate pricing. Given their service timescales aren't suffering and other lenders have repriced similarly, this is almost certainly due to swap rates. Lenders' cost of borrowing money to then lend to customers for fixed-rate mortgages has increased in the last few weeks, by 0.3% - 0.4%. Given this is a problem being faced by all lenders offering fixed-rate mortgages, it seems inevitable others will follow suit, at least to some extent. For now, we hope these changes are things 'settling down', rather than a total U-turn on the recent rate cuts we have seen so far in 2023."
Michael Webb, managing director at Mortgage Republic, said: "Nationwide will be a busy lender in any market, and therefore will likely at times need to manage their business levels by reducing the incoming volumes to maintain service standards. Lenders do this by increasing their rates marginally to make them source lower on the sourcing systems. This is likely what has caused Nationwide to reprice upwards marginally. However, swap rates are on the increase again, even with some base rate stability predicted across the wider media and markets, so we may start to see rates on offer begin to creep up again. Those who have been holding on to see what may happen before committing to a deal would be prudent to get an application in sooner rather than later; even if it is reviewed again should the market dictate savings could be made."
Justin Moy, managing director at EHF Mortgages, added: "We have seen a few lenders increase rates over the last few weeks, with a combination of higher swap rates, and some lenders struggling with processing their recent increased activity. This may also suggest a further base rate increase is still in the Bank of England's remit, and will affect other lenders as a result. Analysts still predict that the base rate will fall towards the end of the year, but there may be some bumps along the way. Anyone with a mortgage renewing in the next six months would be wise to speak to a mortgage broker to look at the options and ways to plan for this."
