The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is less than a week away from meeting for the month of September, the last month of the third quarter of 2015. Since the MPC has brought together the MPC meeting announcement, minutes, and inflation report for the same day, which will be September 10, there will be much news of the expectation of the committee’s decision. Last month the committee voted 8-1 for the standard base interest rate to remain steady, but there were warnings of an impending increase to come.

The warnings have had some impact on the upward push in demand for remortgages from homeowners. While another factor has likely been the ability for cash release from remortgages due to increases in equity levels as house prices continue to rise.

Borrowers will likely see the first increase by the MPC to be small, possibly in the amount of 0.25% bringing the historically low Bank rate to 0.75% from the 0.5% that has held steady since March 2009. Then there will be steady increases as the economy can handle them until the interest rate is near normal.

Despite the Bank holding back from an increase until all factors point to the necessity, lenders are expected to increase their interest rates beforehand. Funding for lending has been rising and lenders will pass that cost onto consumers by pulling their cheapest remortgages and other lending deals and replacing them with higher offers.

Hopeful remortgaging homeowners should keep an eye on the reports surrounding next week’s MPC meeting and should the warnings of an interest rate increase grow louder, then time will be of the essence. The process of a getting a remortgage is much longer now than it used to be and to get the best deals that are available now, it will be important to shop quickly and begin the process to take advantage of the low interest rate deals that are currently being offered.