Moneyfacts.com has identified lenders to be quick in responding to last week’s shock interest rate rise, with several of them, mainly building societies, withdrawing their selected fixed rates or their entire fixed rate range without launching replacement products.

Egg; Stroud & Swindon; Skipton; Kent Reliance and Portman are among the lenders who have withdrawn all or some of their fixed rate products.

Julia Harris, mortgage analyst at Moneyfacts asked:
"So has there been a flurry of customers snapping up these ‘cheap’ deals, causing the societies to exhaust their tranches of fixed rate funds? Or could it be an opportunity to reprice, allowing a larger profit margin?"

"With a further rate rise still on the cards for 2007, those consumers on a tight budget will need to act quickly before more of the current best buy fixed rate deals vanish."

"The next few months will be an interesting time in the mortgage market. We could see short term fixed rates of under 5% vanish, or alternatively see associated arrangement/product fees increased in an attempt to keep them low, as lenders are forced to buy their funds at the now much higher rate offered by the money markets."