Irish Nationwide building society has belatedly cut its mortgage rates but many customers will still be paying well above the 4 per cent or less being offered by other mortgage lenders.
The society announced yesterday that it would cut the variable rate for its existing customers on November 15th by 1 per cent. The reduction should mean that customers on 5.45 per cent will pay 4.45 per cent, substantially above the present industry norm of 3.99 per cent. However, other customers are on far higher rates and some are understood to be paying as much as 6.1 per cent. Their rates will only fall to 5.1 per cent.
Even after the cuts in six weeks' time, an Irish Nationwide customer with a £60,000 mortgage over 20 years is likely to pay between £406 a month (at 5.1 per cent) and £383 a month (at 4.5 per cent). Customers of EBS, the only other building society which has reduced its variable interest rate to all customers to 3.85 per cent, are paying £358 a month for a £60,000 loan.
The 3.98 per cent listed for Irish Nationwide in mortgage tables in this newspaper and others applies to new borrowers with the society and not to existing customers.
A spokesman for Irish Nationwide said the society structured mortgage rates on an individual basis. "People come in and negotiate their rates," he said.
He added that the society was putting in a new mortgage computer system at the beginning of November. "It cannot cope with new rates for a fortnight," he added.
When asked whether some Irish Nationwide customers were on a variable rate of 6.1 per cent, the spokesman said most were on a different rate but that all were negotiated individually.
