Virgin Money is now offering a 10-year fixed rate residential mortgage for 3.99%.

It is available at up to 75% LV and comes with a £9995 product fee as well as including £1,000 cashback for borrowers using it for a house purchase.

Dimora Mortgages director Jamie Lennox says: “Now that the flood gates have opened, we will only see more lenders looking to join the party as this price war starts to truly heat up. Hopefully this will feed into shorter term fixed rates in the weeks ahead.”

However, Mortgage for Actors Austyn Johnson warns: “This is good news overall. 10 years is a long time, though, and so much can happen so proper planning is required.

“Things are definitely stabilising in the mortgage market, but there needs to be much more choice for clients before we switch to a 10-year simply due to rate.”

And Riverside Mortgages broker Greig Cowley says: “This is categorically not a milestone. It’s elementary maths. All this tells us is how far five-year Sonia swaps need to reduce by for five-year fixed rates to drop below the 4% mark.”

Cowley continues: “Currently, 10-year Sonia swaps are at 3.306%, while five-year money is still stuck at 3.528%, so it at least gives us as brokers a heads up when five-year fixes may start with a three if we’re assuming that most lenders are working to a rough margin of between 70 to 90 basis points above the Swap.

“However, specifically on the Virgin 10-year fix deal, I would not recommend this to anyone, given it’s nailed on rates will ease off and continue to fall from the end of this year and throughout the next.”

Tomorrow brings news from the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, in which many market watchers are expecting to see the base rate rise to 4% in the continuing attempt to cool inflation.