Spotlight on... Yorkshire Building Society's 'Drop lock' mortgages

The deal

Yorkshire is offering two and three-year "Drop Lock" tracker mortgages that allow customers to switch to fixed-rate deals without charge.

The good points

With variable interest rates of 2.29% (base rate plus 1.79%) and 2.49% (base rate plus 1.99%) these tracker products offer borrowers better value than any standard variable rate (SVR) mortgage currently on the market. The fees, at £95-£995 are also better than average.

The bad points

The question with this kind of product always has to be the rate you'll have to pay if you do decide to lock into a fixed-rate deal.

Conclusion

Yorkshire is trying to cash in on all those fence-sitting homeowners desperately trying to second-guess interest rate moves over the coming few years. The reality is that over two or three years the expected gradual increases in base rate are unlikely to have a huge impact, but despite tracker rates falling by around 0.2 percentage points, these deals are compelling.