A new lending limit of £2m has been set by Nationwide This is up from a £1m limit that was in place since 2008 on its 75% loan to value fee free mortgages

With the number of people looking to remortgage hitting an 18-month high, the effect of yesterday’s budget on mortgages and homeowners will be of the utmost interest to many of you If you are looking for a contractor mortgage either a purchase or remortgage then click here to calculate how much you could borrow based on your contract rate

The housing and homelessness charity Shelter have indicated that 17,000 homeowners would have been saved from repossessions had the Mortgage Market Review’s (MMR) proposals been implemented five years ago They came to this conclusion after having analysed the Financial Services Authority’s (FSA) figures and have strongly recommended that the proposals be implemented as soon as possible

As confidently predicted by our very own contractor mortgage consultants in their base rate predictions published on Tuesday, this lunchtime the Bank of England again kept the base rate at 05%

The Bank of England base rate has again been held at 05%

As expected the Bank of England Base Rate has again remained at 05%, there is now a general consensus from many Industry Experts that we are likely to see a significant base rate increase in 2011

Yesterdays Budget was a pretty low-key affair mainly due to the upcoming general election To quote the BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson, when summarising the budget “Short on economic announcements, but long on party political statements