Mortgage refinancing boom

A MORTGAGE refinancing boom is in store for homeowners when new lending slows down and brokers come under pressure to drum up replacement business, Davy Stockbrokers predicted yesterday.

Davy analyst Scott Rankin said refinancing had been slow to take off in Ireland so far but that homeowners who took out their mortgage several years ago could cut the interest rate on their loans by up to 0.8%. The availability of cheaper so-called tracker mortgages, which guarantee that the loan rate will never be more than a specified percentage over the ECB rate, had begun to whet borrowers’ appetites for refinancing, he said.

But Mr Rankin also expected the market to be shaken up by new aggressive strategies from Bank of Scotland before the summer, or new National Irish Bank parent Danske towards the end of the year.