# Bank holds UK interest rates at 3.75% and stands ‘ready to act’ over Iran war

By Aneisha Beveridge — 2026-03-19

Aneisha Beveridge, research director at Connells Group, said: “The Bank of England has followed other central banks in adopting a wait-and-see attitude when it comes to weighing up the risks of energy price-induced inflation.

“But despite the unanimous hold in base rate, mortgage pricing has been steadily creeping up on the expectation that rates will need to rise to reduce the impact of higher energy prices in the economy.

“Already, mortgage rates have risen to where they were last summer, reversing a large chunk of the falls they’d seen over the last year.

“This week, Connells Group data shows that the average buyer secured a rate of 4.59%, up from 4.39% last week and 4.30% during the same week last month. That meant just 6% of buyers locked in a sub-4 % rate so far this week, down from 26% at the same time last month.

“Meanwhile, more than a fifth (21%) of first-time buyers had to commit to a rate of more than 5% this week, up from just 6% during the same week last month.

“Over the last two weeks, rates between products have been compressed, with cheaper and lower loan-to-value products, often used by existing homeowners and those remortgaging, generally seeing the larger increases in rates.

“The rate gap between someone borrowing at 50% LTV and 90% LTV has fallen by around a third – from 0.90% to 0.64%.”

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