Mortgage crisis: Key updates you may have missed in the past 48 hours

What's happening? The average two-year fixed mortgage deal now has an interest rate of more than 6% for the first time this year.

The news on Monday followed a bleak weekend for homeowners in the UK, with the government increasingly being urged to help out amid a growing "mortgage horror show".

Mortgage lenders have been pulling deals and putting up interest rates in recent weeks, with homeowners set to pay thousands of pounds extra when they remortgage next year.

And, this Thursday, the Bank of England is widely expected to raise its base rate, currently at 4.5%, to 4.75%. It would be the 13th time in a row it has increased.

Yahoo News takes you through a tough 48 hours that anyone with a mortgage should know about.

A £2,900 warning for average household

On Saturday, the Resolution Foundation think-tank predicted that annual mortgage payments will rise by nearly £3,000 for the average household remortgaging next year.

The foundation warned that the Bank of England's base rate could peak at nearly 6% in the middle of 2024.

It predicted the average annual mortgage payment would rise by £2,900 next year, and that total annual mortgage repayments could rise by £15.8bn by 2026.

The Resolution Foundation said the average two-year fixed-rate mortgage will not fall below 4.5% until the end of 2027.

Overall, about 7.5 million UK households with a mortgage are expected to see their repayments rise by 2026, the foundation said.

• Homeowners face biggest ever mortgage shock (The Telegraph, 5 mins)

Help for homeowners?

On Monday, prime minister Rishi Sunak appeared to rule out further aid for mortgage holders as the interest rates crisis deepens.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, he said: “I know the anxiety people will have about the mortgage rates, that is why the first priority I set out at the beginning of the year was to halve inflation because that is the best and most important way that we can keep costs and interest rates down for people.

“We’ve got a clear plan to do that, it is delivering, we need to stick to the plan.

“But there is also support available for people. We have the mortgage guarantee scheme for first-time buyers and we have the support for mortgage interest scheme, which is there to help people as well."

But levelling up secretary Michael Gove earlier indicated that extra help may be made available.

He told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show: “When it comes to mortgages, it’s the independent Bank of England’s interest rate decisions that will govern that, but we are looking at everything that we can do in order to help homeowners through this difficult period.”

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said on Monday: “The time for the government to step in is now, anything else will be a disaster for struggling families worried about losing their homes," he said.

• Rishi Sunak offers no extra help for homeowners as mortgage rates climb (Evening Standard, 3 mins)

'Mortgage catastrophe'

With the Conservatives lagging in the polls, a mortgage crisis will likely hit the party's traditional base hardest.

Lucy Allan, the Tory MP for Telford who announced last week her decision to stand down at the next general election, said "more and more ordinary people" are unable to pay their mortgages and warned of a "mortgage catastrophe"

She wrote on her website: "People in Telford are struggling. Interest rates have doubled since last summer. More and more ordinary people cannot pay their mortgage. That has hideous consequences.

"They are raiding their savings accounts, cancelling their pension contributions, borrowing from friends and family, hoping this will be a short lived crisis; but it won't. We know that.

"This is a mortgage catastrophe staring us in the face."

• Tory MP says UK is facing a 'mortgage catastrophe' (The Independent, 4 mins)

• Bank of England set to rise interest rates (Yahoo Finance, 3 mins)

Two-year fixed-rate mortgage rates cross 6%

On Monday, in a further sign that the mortgage crisis is only set to intensify, it was reported that the average two-year fixed-rate mortgage deal on the market has hit 6.01% on Monday – its highest level since December.

About 2.4 million fixed-rate mortgages are due to end between now and the end of 2024, according to figures from UK Finance.

Samuel Mather-Holgate, an independent financial adviser at Mather and Murray Financial, said: “The quickest, easiest and most sensible thing the government can do is to stop the Bank of England raising interest rates.”

• Average mortgage rate rises above 6% for two-year fixed deal (Sky News, 3 mins)

Watch: Chancellor pressed on whether extra help will be given to struggling families