Mortgage rates are moving in the wrong direction again, and anyone selling a substantial family home in Kent right now will feel it before most. Lenders have spent September pushing fixed rate pricing higher, not once but in some cases twice, even as the Bank of England has kept its base rate exactly where it was.
At its meeting ending on 16 September 2026, the Monetary Policy Committee voted by a majority of six to three to maintain Bank Rate at 3.75 per cent, with three members voting to increase it by 0.25 percentage points to 4 per cent. That is the sixth hold in a row since the base rate was last cut in December. On paper, a hold sounds like good news for anyone with a mortgage. In practice, it has done almost nothing to calm the pricing of new fixed rate deals.
Why fixed rates keep climbing despite a steady base rate
The disconnect comes down to how lenders actually price mortgages. Fixed deals track swap rates and market expectations for where the base rate is heading, not where it sits today. And those expectations have shifted sharply. The recent uplift in swap rates has started to filter into the pricing of fixed rate mortgages, with more moves expected in the coming days. NatWest, Santander, HSBC, Lloyds Bank and TSB are among those to have repriced products again since the start of September, while Nationwide and other building societies have also started a second round of increases.
The scale of the move is not trivial. Since the start of March 2026, the average two-year fixed mortgage rate has risen from 4.84% to 5.73%, adding around £131 to monthly repayments on a £250,000 mortgage over 25 years, or £1,572 a year. Moneyfacts says the average two-year fix is now at its highest level since June, with the average five-year fix back to levels last seen in April. A further quarter point rise would sting too. Moneyfacts calculates that a rise from 5.73% to 5.98% on a £250,000 repayment mortgage over 25 years would add around £38 a month, or another £456 a year.
Rachel Springall at Moneyfactscompare put it bluntly. "The mortgage pain shows no sign of easing for those borrowers who cannot yet lock into a new deal, particularly those with a five-year fixed who are not due to refinance until 2027," she said, adding a stark reminder of how far rates have travelled. "Back in February 2022, there were sub-2% fixed mortgages available, so moving off this rate will be a huge shock for borrowers."
What is driving the nerves
Behind the repricing sits a genuine inflation worry. Figures released in September showed that inflation increased to 3.1% in August, as soaring fuel and transport prices triggered by the Middle East conflict pushed price growth further above the Bank of England's target. The Bank itself is not ruling out further action. Governor Andrew Bailey has been clear on the point, warning that the longer the conflict continues, the greater its impact on inflation and the more likely the Bank will need to raise rates to return inflation to its 2% target.
Markets have already repriced their expectations dramatically. Before the conflict began, two rate cuts were pencilled in for this year. That has since flipped, and investors are now betting rates could climb to 4.75 per cent within a year, potentially touching 5 per cent. The scale of the move already baked into mortgage pricing is striking too, with the Bank's own minutes noting that the quoted rate on two-year fixed deals sits around 95 basis points higher than prior to the conflict.
The Kent angle
This matters more in Kent than in many parts of the country, simply because of the price point involved. Across the towns and villages we track, the average asking price currently stands at £877,842, a figure that reflects the county's concentration of larger family houses and villages within commuting reach of London. A rate move that adds a modest sum to a £250,000 mortgage adds proportionately far more once you scale it up to the size of loan needed for a property near that average. Buyers stretching to that level are the ones most sensitive to even small movements in monthly repayments, and it is exactly this segment of the market where hesitation shows up first.
It already has. Prices across our tracked areas have flatlined over the past year, sitting at 0.0 per cent annual growth. Homes are taking an average of 190 days to find a buyer, and only 27 per cent of listings are currently under offer. Those are not the numbers of a market in freefall, but they are the numbers of a market where buyers are taking their time, negotiating hard, and in many cases waiting to see where mortgage pricing settles before committing. A property that might once have gone under offer within weeks is now sitting through several viewings cycles before an acceptable offer lands.
Sellers of higher value Kent property should not read this as a reason to panic, but it is a reason to price with discipline. Overpricing into a market where days on market are already stretching towards six months is a recipe for a longer, more frustrating sale. Realistic pricing from day one tends to attract serious buyers who have already had their finances reviewed and are not going to walk away the moment their broker mentions a repricing notice from their lender.
What buyers and sellers can actually do
For anyone with a deal expiring soon, the advice from brokers has been consistent. Nicholas Mendes of mortgage broker John Charcol said the hold "does not take a future rate rise off the table" and that the next few inflation and wage readings will be important, adding that November is the first obvious window for a move, with December also possible. Ian Futcher at Quilter offered a similarly cautious note, saying the key message for mortgage borrowers is not to assume that a hold today automatically translates into cheaper borrowing tomorrow.
That caution is showing up in buyer behaviour nationally. FCA figures show 381,364 mortgages secured a new deal up to six months before maturity during the second quarter of 2026, as borrowers move early rather than risk being caught out. It is a sensible instinct, and one Kent buyers coming off older fixed deals would do well to copy. Around 750,000 households have fixed-rate mortgages expiring during 2026 while currently paying rates below 3%, meaning many could face noticeably higher repayments when they refinance.
The next scheduled test comes on 5 November, when the Monetary Policy Committee meets again, just over a week after the Autumn Budget on 28 October. Nobody can say with confidence what either event will bring. What does seem clear is that the easy assumption of last year, that rates would simply keep drifting down, has been replaced by something more uncertain. For Kent's higher value corner of the market, where deals already take longer to close and buyers are already more price sensitive, that uncertainty is the thing to watch most closely over the coming weeks.