Posted on by Dean Garratt

Inflation, interest rates and mortgage repayments

This is the first of three blogs looking at inflation, at its effect on household budgets and at monetary policy to bring inflation back to the target rate. This first one takes an overview.

The housing and mortgage markets are vitally important to the financial well-being of many households. We have seen this vividly in recent times through the impact of rising inflation rates on interest rates and, in turn, on mortgage repayments. Some people on variable rate mortgages, or whose fixed rate deals are coming to the end of their term, have struggled to pay the new higher rates. In this blog we explore the reasons behind these events and the extent to which the financial well-being of UK households has been affected.

Chart 1 shows the path of inflation in the UK since 1997 when the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was first charged with meeting an inflation rate target (click here for a PowerPoint). It captures the impact of the inflation shock that began to emerge in 2021 and saw the CPI inflation rate peak at 11.1 per cent in October 2022 – considerably above the Bank’s 2 per cent target.

Despite easing somewhat, the CPI inflation rate is showing signs of persistence – meaning that it is taking time for it to return to target. One way of understanding this persistence is to look at a measure of inflation known as core inflation. This inflation rate measure excludes energy, food, alcoholic beverages and tobacco prices, all of which are notoriously volatile. Core inflation thus captures underlying inflationary pressures.

To address the inflationary pressures, the Bank of England began raising Bank Rate in December 2021 from a low of just 0.1 per cent. By June 2023 the Bank Rate had risen to 5 per cent with the prospect of further hikes. As the Bank Rate rises, the cost of borrowing from the Bank of England by commercial banks rises too. Therefore increases in the Bank Rate ripple through to other interest rates. However, the passthrough effect can be uneven affecting spreads between Bank Rate and other interest rates.

The increase in the Bank Rate is reflected in the increases in mortgage rates shown in Chart 2 (click here for a PowerPoint). As we have seen, this affects most immediately those with variable rate mortgages, and then those with fixed-rate mortgages as they come up for renewal. Analysis from the Resolution Foundation (2023) estimates that 4.2 million households saw their mortgage rates change between December 2021 and June 2023 – the equivalent of 56 per cent of mortgaged households.

The persistence of inflation means that mortgage rates may not have yet peaked and are likely to stay higher for longer than originally thought. With fixes normally between two to five years, the problem of higher rates for those renewing will continue. The Resolution Foundation projects that by the end of 2026, almost all households with a mortgage would have moved to a higher rate since December 2021. At this point, the typical annual repayment cost for mortgaged households is forecast to be £2000 per annum higher, leading to an increase in annual repayments for the UK household sector of £15.8 billion.

Chart 3 provides a visual picture of the typical annual repayment costs facing first-time buyers as a percentage of earnings after tax and national insurance (click here for a PowerPoint). The Nationwide Building Society figures are based on an 80% loan on the typical first-time buyer house price. It shows that repayment costs have been rising sharply on the back of rising interest rates and are now higher than at any time since the global financial crisis of 2007–8.

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Questions

  1. What possible indicators could be used to assess the affordability of residential house prices?
  2. What is captured by the rate of core inflation? Discuss the arguments for using this as the target inflation rate measure.
  3. What factors might affect the proportion of people taking out fixed-rate mortgages rather than variable-rate mortgages?
  4. Discuss the ways by which house price changes could impact on household consumption.
  5. Investigate the proportion of mortgages that are fixed rate and the typical length of the fixed rate term in two European countries, the USA and Japan. How does each differ from the UK?