Hanley Economic: good for fixers, but strictly local for first-timers

Hot on the heels of our recent chat about Chorley, here's another regional building society with a potentially table-topping deal.

Hanley Economic Building Society is a 155-year old society with five branches in Staffordshire, and it's currently offering a two-year fixed rate of 3.69%.

The rate is the lowest currently available for mortgages up to 70 per cent loan to value.  It ranks amongst the best in the 2-year fixed rate mortgage market, including the 60 per cent deals.

A fee of £895 is pretty average in the market, and there are a couple of other appetisers as well: you can re-mortgage to this deal with free legals, and you can overpay the capital up to 10 per cent a year with no penalty.

If you're happier to go variable and save more interest in the meantime, there's a 2.95% two-year discounted variable rate. This is also fairly competitive, although it's not a category leader like the fixed rate option.  You might also enjoy the more personal service that a small building society provides, though.

Meanwhile, following on from the discussions on Chorley & District's geographical lending limits, how's this for strictly local?

Hanley offers first time buyers a fixed rate mortgage with a 90 per cent loan to value limit.  It charges 5.99% interest over three years and fees are a not unreasonable £649. Even so, their definition of local is far stricter than the Chorley's: this mortgage is only available on properties within a 25 mile radius of the society's head office!

So, supposing you're not a Staffordshire first time buyer but you want a firm roof on your repayments for two years and have 30 per cent deposit, take a look at the Hanley Economic.