Higher mortgage rates have pushed buyers firmly into the driving seat, with agreed sales down 9% on a year ago as greater choice and affordability pressures weigh on the housing market. Average mortgage rates have climbed to 5.2%, their highest level in three years, according...

In the mortgage market, we have lots of different ways of describing customers depending on where they are in their lives. We talk about first-time buyers, mainstream borrowers, complex income and later-life customers, but we can sometimes forget that these are not necessarily different...