Figures show 33 out of 40 mortgage best buy deals across fixed, variable and buy-to-let terms are provided by building societies - 83% of the most competitive deals.
Building societies currently offering best buy deals include Hinckley & Rugby for remortgages, while Principality, Coventry and Leeds are competitive for fixed rates. Hinckley & Rugby, Marsden and Mansfield are competitive for discounted rates and Furness and Coventry score well for variable rates.
Average rates on building society best buy mortgages are currently 3.26% compared with 6.2% in 2008 and lower than the 3.81% in October 2012 when Funding for Lending started to take effect.
Sean Oldfield, chief executive officer at Castle Trust, said: “The strong recovery since 2009 means building societies’ market share is the highest since 1999. They are competing strongly against bigger banks and are proving to be innovative and responsive to the demands of the market.
"Capital from the Funding for Lending Scheme is helping to energise parts of the mortgage market but there remains a real need for further innovation to help unblock the housing market in support of Government schemes such as FirstBuy and HomeBuy.
“FLS is helping the bigger banks compete for headline rates on low loan to value mortgages, while building societies offer a wide variety of innovative mortgage products with a range of financing options for homeowners.”
Research released by the Building Society Association yesterday revealed that gross mortgage lending by building societies and other mutual lenders reached £2.5bn in February.
