The average five-year fixed rate mortgage deal has hit 6%.

In June the average five-year fix was 0.43% more expensive and the average two-year fixed rate deal increased by 0.41% to 5.08%.

About 65 residential mortgage products have dropped from the market, leaving 1,242 on the shelves.

Borrowers looking for a 90% loan-to-value - or 10% deposit down - deals have gone up 21% during June, with Britannia, Cambridge, Earl Shilton, Leek United and Saffron building societies all entering the niche market.

“Anyone looking for a new fixed rate deal needs to act fast as lenders continue to fall over each other to increase rates," Louis Kaszczak, of independent finance reviewers Moneyfacts.

“No one seems to want to offer the lowest fixed rate deal. The only positive news is for those with a small deposit, where competition is slowly returning to the market.”

Kaszczak added not many borrowers would likely take up an average five-year fix standing at 6.79% for those with a 10% deposit.

House prices dropped across a number of regions in May, according to the Land Registry.

The Halifax and Nationwide Building Society released figures suggesting the average cost of housing rose during the month, the Land Registry data came to a different conclusion.

According to the Land Registry, the average property in England and Wales dropped in value by 0.2% between April and May.

The region with the most significant annual price fall of 17.2% was the north-east, while Manchester  experienced the greatest annual drop in value with a movement of 23.8%.

Another housing market survey by Hometrack shows prices stood still in June as the number of new buyers increased.

Rising sales volumes, a dwindling supply of housing for sale and a continuing increase in demand have all contributed to the standstill.

The survey shows the number of new buyers registering with estate agents rose by 4.6% in June, the fifth monthly increase in a row.

New buyer registrations have grown by 36% since the start of the year in stark contrast to the same period last year when agents registered an 18% drop in the number of buyers on their books.

Sales have also risen by more than 80% since the start of the year, albeit from a low base.

One of the best sources of fixed rate mortgage deals is a mortgage comparison site like ours.

Mortgage approvals in May hit a 13-month high in May with 31,162 loans approved for buying a property, 7% more than in April, the British Bankers’ Association said.

The figure was also 16% higher than May 2008; the first time the annual measure has shown an increase since November 2006.

Banks and building societies are also pushing up mortgage rates, despite Bank of England interest rates remaining steady at 0.5% for several months.

The Bank of England also says mortgage lenders are still turning down more applications - with 16% of applications refused last month, up 33% from 12% in December 2008.

The message from lenders is clear. If borrowers have a big cash deposit and impeccable credit record, then a mortgage to buy a home is available.

Best fixed rate deals are offered to those putting down the biggest cash deposits.

The ongoing weakness in the remortgage market dragged down the overall lending figures, with total advances of £7.7 billion the lowest since February 2001.

This is sending another clear message to borrowers – lenders don’t think house prices have stopped falling and unless borrowers who want to remortgage have a large slice of equity in their property, the mortgage market is closed to them.

According to research by Fitch Ratings, the worst places for negative equity, where homeowners are trapped with being unable to remortgage are Northampton, Nottingham, Derby, Peterborough, and Lincoln that take five of the top 12 places – including the first four – in a league table of the top 100 cities and towns in negative equity.

This negative equity effectively wipes out any chance of a remortgage in the East Midlands, as Leicester also features in the top 12 as well.

Net lending, which strips out redemptions and repayments, also fell for the third month in a row to £2.3 billion, a level last seen in early 2001, when the average mortgage taken out for house purchase was just £74,400, compared with £133,600 in May.

The number of loans arranged by people remortgaging fell further during May to a near-nine-and-a-half-year low of just 24,847, 60% below levels seen 12 months ago.

But despite falling for the fifth consecutive month, the BBA said loans for remortgaging and those for other purposes, such as equity release or buy-to-let, appeared to be stabilising at their current low level.

BBA statistics director David Dooks said: "Steady monthly increases since last November have seen the number of loans approved for house purchase recover to levels seen in early 2008, although gross and net mortgage lending show a subdued wider mortgage picture.

"However, unlike much of the mortgage market, the high street banks are still seeing lending growth and improved mortgage availability is reflected in higher average loan approval values."

Many lenders are still heavily advertising mortgages at low headline rates, but it’s worth checking out your options on a mortgage comparison site like ours.

Mortgage lenders are turning away more than 16,000 borrowers - about one in five of the total number of application - every month despite media advertising offering low interest rate fixed rate mortgage deals, new figures from the Bank of England show.

If you are looking for a mortgage, then consider a mortgage comparison site like ours to find the best interest rates and loan options.

Mortgage borrowers were looking for a quick fix in April - with 69% of them taking out a fixed rate mortgage.

The site searches the latest mortgage deals that suit your needs by asking a few simple questions and lists them for you to pick the best for you.

Keeping up with the property market is taking some doing this month as several market ‘trackers’ announced their latest findings.

The Halifax has reported home prices increased by 2.6% in May, pushing the price of the average UK home up by more than £4,000 to £158,565.

The jump helped to reduce the annual rate of decline in prices to 13.6%, from 17.8% in April.

This is only the third time prices have gone up in the past 21 months, according to the Halifax.

Nationwide data, based on the building society’s mortgage loans, showed that prices rose by 1.2 % in May, the second monthly rise since March.

Property intelligence group Hometrack said house prices remained unchanged in May, the first time in 20 months their data has not recorded price falls

The Land Registry says the price of the average home in England and Wales dropped 0.3% to £152,898, the smallest monthly drop in nearly a year.

However, property values were still 16.2% below April 2008, just below February’s record decline of 16.4%.

Land Registry figures are based on actual home sales, although they exclude the sales of new-build homes and properties worth less than £40,000.

Nitesh Patel, housing economist at Halifax, said: “Historically, house prices have not moved in the same direction month after month, even during a pronounced downturn.”

But she added there were signs the market was stabilising, with Bank of England figures showing that the number of mortgages approved for homebuyers rose to a one-year high of 43,201 in April — though this was still 22% fewer than in April last year.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said that house prices could be propped up by a shortfall in supply as sellers, reluctant to accept a lower price, delay putting their homes on the market.

All but the most cash-rich first-time buyers have been squeezed out of the market as lenders demand hefty deposits before allowing them to qualify for the most competitive deals.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said that the average first-time buyer is now paying a deposit of 25%, meaning that the price rise in May added £731 to the bill for a down payment for prospective buyers.

Interpreting the state of the market is difficult  - but the reports appear to show that price falls are slowing, more borrowers are looking to buy and lenders are agreeing more mortgages – but activity is nowhere near top of the market levels of a year or two ago.

Finding mortgages is still tough if borrowers don’t have at least a 25% cash deposit for buying or an equal amount of equity for remortgaging.

If you are looking for the best rate mortgage or best rate remortgage, your best bet is still to consider a mortgage comparison site.

Rates and products are coming on and off the market quickly and searching out the best deals is easier on the web rather than spending hours tramping the high streets.

The number of homebuyers, including first time buyers,  signing up for new mortgages was up again in April - for the third month in a row.

The National Estate Agents Association is also reporting that their members are reporting increased sales - but then they have a vested interest and don’t point out that many estate agents have closed in the past 12 months, so presumably the sales would increase in the offices left.

Every borrower wants to pay off their mortgage early - and a loan product that may help you do this is an offset mortgage.

Many lenders are pushing offset mortgages in TV advertising, so here’s a guide on how the scheme works.

The offset principle reduces the balance at various times throughout the life of the mortgage and the amount of interest paid, so more of the the monthly mortgage repayment goes towards paying off the capital or amount borrowed.

This way, the borrowing is reducing quicker than a traditional capital and repayment mortgage.

The lending terms for offset mortgages are much the same as those for other mortgages, so a first time buyer or a homeowner looking for a remortgage will have to meet the same qualifying criteria as for any other loan.

Only three in every ten would-be first time buyers believe they ever have a hope of owning a home.

Most feel the lenders and government inaction have pulled the property ladder out from under them and that their chance to climb back on will never come, according to a survey by Property Live, a home selling portal.

The Property Live research revealed that first time buyers have to find a 25% cash deposit to even get a lender to let them through the door to talk about a mortgage - let alone make an offer.

The problem stems from two factors -

• Banks and building societies want a bigger deposit to lessen their exposure to risk from homeowners who cannot afford to repay their loans and to make sure they are not left with a property in negative equity as they market keeps falling

• The Bank of Mum and Dad, who traditionally finance a lot of first time home purchases with a gift deposit raised from remortgaging their own houses can no longer raise cash because do not have enough equity to borrow more

The research shows that 65% of would-be first-time buyers believe they will never be able to afford their own home, with the figure rising as high as 92% in some places.

Only 15% of those who do expect to eventually buy their own homes feel it will happen in the next two years.

And 5% of those questioned did not expect to be able to buy a home for five years or more.

The Nationwide Building Society index showed house prices fell by an average 0.4% in April, with the year-on-year drop standing at 15% less than last April.

Last month, mortgage lending dropped back £1 billion according to Bank of England figures, to the lowest monthly figure for many years.

Lenders are still publicising low rate headline mortgage products for first time buyers as well as other home buyers - you can easily find what is currently available by checking a mortgage comparison site like ours.

Searching our site will return the best rate first time buyer and remortgage products matched to your personal needs from across the mortgage market in seconds.

Some lenders are trying to attract first time buyers by offering mortgages with conditions - that involve tying cash tied up in a bank savings account paying a miserable rate of interest.

It could be these lenders have an ulterior motive in trying to attract savings because currently only deposit taking banks and building societies can raise any cash to lend on the wholesale money markets and by basing their borrowings on other people’s savings, they could be trying to sidestep exposure to future risks.

Banks and building societies are lending less money despite billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money paid out to keep them in business.

The Bank of England says that mortgage lending is at an eight year low - with the amount of loans offered in April £1 billion down on March.
 
Much of the decline is due to borrowers tending to stay on their lender’s standard rate rather than remortgaging to a better mortgage rate at the end of a fixed or other special rate deal.

Many are locked out of remortgaging because the equity - the mortgage free part of their home’s value - is too high to qualify for new borrowing as lenders tighten up lending criteria.

The Bank of England’s figures are in line with those issued by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, which shows a 9% drop in mortgage advances for April.

The Bank said data from the UK’s six biggest lenders showed mortgage applications had risen over recent months with buyers returning to the market.

Mortgage acceptance rates were broadly unchanged since the start of the year, although approvals for house purchases rose during April, building on increases seen in February and March.

The survey also showed that the rate at which unsecured lending - like credit cards and loans - is growing was the lowest since 1992 during for the period January 1 - March 31.

Unsecured lending acceptance rates by lenders were little changed during April and demand remained weak.

Interest rates fell slightly during March, although during the past six months they have fallen by ‘considerably less’ than the Bank of England base rate and inter-bank lending rate Libor.

Part-nationalised banks, like Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group have announced multibillion-pound loan allocations for mortgage and business customers in return for state support.

HSBC, which has not received help from taxpayers, has also pledged to boost mortgage lending this year.

Despite these promises, the money for borrowers is more of a drip than a flood and little of the cash has hit the property market - and on the figures above, is decreasing.

Finding a mortgage can still be a daunting task unless borrowers have at least a 10% deposit - and with many lenders this is still not enough to get their best rate mortgages.

For prospective borrowers looking to buy or remortgage, a mortgage comparison site like ours can reveal the current best rate mortgages in seconds.

You can also use our site to look for the cheapest loan deals and best credit card deals.