Alliance & Leicester Savings has launched two new fixed-rate bonds - a six-month fixed-rate and a three-year fixed-rate, with interest rates of 4.50% gross and 4.00% gross pa/AER, respectively.

These new bonds are available from all Alliance & Leicester branches, for sums of between £1,000 and £2,000,000.  The offer will be available while funds last, with the six-month bond maturing on 30 June 2009, and the 3-year bond maturing on 31 December 2011.

Chelsea Building Society is cutting its standard variable rate to 5.79%,  with effect from 31 December. This change is following on from the Bank of England base rate change on 6 November.

Nationwide Building Society is cutting the price of its two-year fixed rate mortgage deals to 4.98% with a £599 fee, and selected three- and five-year fixed rate deals by up to 0.80%. The society will also be withdrawing its 10- and 25-year fixed rate products.  

The number of homes being repossessed by mortgage lenders has soared by 12% to 11,300 in the last three months, latest figures show.

Data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders shows that the number of borrowers who have fallen into arrears also went up during the third quarter of the year compared with the previous quarter, by 8% to 168,000.

The CML says that 1.44% of mortgages were at least three months in arrears, up from 1.33% at the end of June. to 168,000, 8% higher than the 155,600 at the end of June. This means that the total for the year will almost certainly exceed the earlier forecast of 170,000.

At least 5,000 properties a week are being put on the market because their owners can’t afford to keep up the mortgage payments. That’s about 20% of all houses up for sale at the moment, according to the National Association of Estate Agents. It’s known as “forced downsizing”.

The situation is even worse than those figures suggest in some areas: one in five estate agents said forced downsizing sales accounted for half of all properties on their books.

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Abbey is cutting rates by up to 0.5 per cent on all its 3-year fixed-rate mortgages from 60 to 75% loan to value from 21 November.

Last week, Abbey reduced the rate on its 2-year fixed-rate mortgages to 4.4% with a £995 fee for 60 % LTV and 4.79% with a £995 fee for 75% LTV.