Despite the recent housing gloom, the lender has announced reductions to some of its tracker deals.
Britain's fourth-biggest lender has announced that it will cut rates on many of its mortgage deals.
Two year tracker rates for borrowers providing deposits of 25 per cent of the property's value are to fall by 0.27 per cent, while fixes for the same period would also be cut by 0.07 per cent on Wednesday, Nationwide said.
News of the move provides rare good news for the sector; surveys released earlier in the week from property researchers Hometrack and the Land Registry both found that year-on-year house price inflation continues to drop, while Nationwide's own pricing survey has found a 0.9 per cent overall drop for last month.
The erosion in property value that has been seen across the country has led to falling numbers of home sales - and has also led to many risk-averse lenders raising their rates. Therefore, Nationwide's decision to cut has come somewhat against the prevailing mood. Director of mortgages at the firm Matthew Carter commented: "These price changes reinforce our message that despite tougher market conditions, we remain very much open for business."
Nationwide's cuts have also been responded to by its high street rivals: Halifax is to cut its trackers by 0.12 per cent on average, while Intelligent Finance reduced its offset tracker by 0.1 per cent. Both firms have also upped rates for fixes, however.
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