{"id":378110,"date":"2026-04-14T00:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/378110\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T00:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:11:08","slug":"average-shelf-life-of-mortgages-falls-to-just-over-a-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/378110\/","title":{"rendered":"Average shelf-life of mortgages falls to just over a week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mortgage volatility is now greater than after Liz Truss\u2019s mini-budget, as lenders pull their products at a record speed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brokers said that homeowners faced \u201cmayhem\u201d when looking to borrow or lock in a new rate because the average shelf-life of mortgage products had fallen to a record low of eight days.<\/p>\n

It is almost half the 15-day average that mortgages were advertised at the start of October 2022, when the mini-budget sent shockwaves through the markets. At the time, borrowers reported deals being withdrawn while in the process of applying.<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Trump\u2019s war with Iran is creating global financial uncertainty Tasos Katopodis\/Getty IMAGES<\/p>\n

Rachel Springall, a finance expert at Moneyfacts, the advice website, said that the conflict in the Middle East had caused \u201cmortgage mayhem\u201d, with lenders rushing to pull products from sale and reprice at higher rates throughout March.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThe lifespan of a mortgage deal has plummeted to a record low of just eight days on average and mortgage product availability has shrunk by around 17 per cent in just one month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe market overall has experienced the worst upheaval to mortgage choice since the mini-budget, yet another blow for borrowers over the past five years, which includes the surge in interest rates during the summer of 2023 amid higher inflation expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The average two-year fixed rate rose by 1 percentage point in March, the greatest month-on-month increase since November 2022. Average five-year rates rose by 0.79 percentage points<\/a>, the biggest monthly rise since July 2023.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeAn Israeli airstrike on the village of Qlaileh in LebanonKawnat HAJU\/AFP\/getty images<\/p>\n

The number of mortgages available also fell by 1,283, meaning that there are now fewer than 7,000 options for the first time since November last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Katy Eatenton, a mortgage specialist at Lifetime Wealth Management, said: \u201cThe path of interest rates has never been more uncertain and the pain for borrowers is acute. And you think that, towards the end of February, markets were expecting rates to continue to edge down as we headed into a busy spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cRates have shot up dramatically since the start of the war and lenders have rarely been as nervous. 400 fewer products for borrowers with just a 5 per cent or 10 per cent deposit or equity could start impacting the market as a whole<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the middle of last month, economists were forecasting as many as three Bank of England interest rate rises this year. Before the war, the markets were pricing in one or two cuts during 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The announcement of a ceasefire last week<\/a> raised hopes that the interest rate would only rise once between now and December, although the economic situation remains volatile.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Omer Mehmet, the managing director at Trinity Finance, said: \u201cIt\u2019s hard to recall a time when the mortgage market has changed direction so quickly and to such extremes. The eight-day shelf-life<\/a> shows that lenders, like the rest of us, have little idea of what could happen next. Markets hate uncertainty and borrowers are now having to pay for that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mortgage volatility is now greater than after Liz Truss\u2019s mini-budget, as lenders pull their products at a record…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-378110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}