The Bank of England offered up a lot of new economic information on Thursday. The most notable is that they cut their forecast for UK growth over the next two years and warned that their forecast could be impacted by whether there was a deal or no deal for Brexit. The economy is now forecasted to grow by 1.3% for 2019, which is a mark down from the previous projection offered earlier this year in May of 1.5%.

The projection for growth in 2020 was cut to 1.3% from the previous expectation of 1.6% growth for the UK economy.

The projections for UK economic growth were made considering that a deal would be involved with Britain leaving the European Union. However, should there be a no deal situation associated with Brexit it would likely lead to slower growth.

Another important announcement from the Bank of England involved the standard base rate. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously to keep the rate at 0.75%.

Most experts believe that following Brexit there might be a change in the outlook of the MPC and an interest rate hike could occur. If so, that hike would be modest and would likely be at the level of the previous increases which were 0.25% taking the standard base rate to 1.0%. That would make it 4 times the level it was a bit over a year ago when it was at the historic low of 0.25%.

The fact that the MPC left the rate unchanged for August was not a surprise as most economists expected that outcome. 

In regards to how the Thursday news impacts homeowners, it confirms what most experts are saying and that is homeowners should not wait out Brexit in hope of a cut to the current interest rate, but rather be prepared for higher rates toward the end of the year. It would likely be best for homeowners to take advantage of the current low interest rate remortgages offered rather than wait and lose out on the opportunities currently available to save money with a lower rate.