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Rates at Quotezone

The majority of economists believe that mortgage rates will stay at 0.5 per cent until 2014, but Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at investment adviser Jogn Charcol, believes it could stay that way even longer, possibly until 2015.

Rates have come down due to low bank rates that, in turn, lower swap rates.

This in particular is causing a drop in five-year fixed-rate mortgages due to a fall in gilt yields, which are closely connected to the base rate.

"Five-year fixed-rates haven't increased as much - the ones that have gone up more are the shorter-term deals," said Mr Boulger.

"The key driver for fixed-rate pricing is swap rates, and five-year swap rates are quite close to all-time lows."

Fixed-rates did bottom out at the turn of the year, but have slowly been recuperating. This means they look very bad on a 12-month basis but over a three-month cycle it looks much more positive.

The average five-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped from 5.59 per cent to 4.86 per cent year-on-year, according to figures from Moneyfacts.co.uk.