By Scott Kanowsky
Investing.com -- More than 300 mortgage products were pulled overnight in the U.K., deepening a recent rush of withdrawn offerings sparked by a fall in the value of the pound in the wake of a mini-budget released late last week.
According to the personal finance website Moneyfacts, Britain's residential mortgage market has 2,340 products in availability as of Thursday morning, down from 2,661 on Wednesday. A record 935 products were previously removed between Tuesday and Wednesday, more than double the prior high set in the early days of the pandemic.
Lenders Virgin Money, Skipton Building Society, Post Office Money, Vida Homeloans and various Bank of Ireland (LON:BIRG) brands have completely halted all their mortgage rate offerings, while others have ceased to advertise fixed-rate mortgages to customers.
A sharp dip in sterling following the delivery of U.K. chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's new spending proposal has helped to stoke expectations that the Bank of England will aggressively hike interest rates to stem the decline. The higher borrowing costs could, in turn, hurt house prices and weigh on homebuyer demand already under pressure from a cost-of-living crisis caused by soaring inflation.
The pound was lower against the U.S. dollar in mid-day trading.
Meanwhile, shares in major U.K. homebuilding firm Barratt Developments (LON:BDEV) slumped by more than 12%, while peers Taylor Wimpey (LON:TW) and Bellway PLC (LON:BWY) also dropped.