Mortgage lenders these days are like errant husbands who neglect their loyal customers and go off wandering the streets in search of any old floozy on whom to lavish cash and gifts.

They flirt with virgin firsttimers and make eyes at experienced older borrowers who are dissatisfied with their own lender and more than willing to run off with a new one.

They entice them with rockbottom interest rates and wave wads of free cash under their noses. But what about their loyal customers who stuck with them through thick and thin?

Well, just like the loving stayat-home spouse whose partner has a wandering eye . . . they end up being treated like crap.

In fact, to add insult to injury, lenders even filch money from their purses to pay for the gifts they lavish on their 'fancywomen'.

Just take a look at the mortgage tables. There are fantastic deals out there, but mainly for new borrowers and disloyal switchers. They are the ones who are being targeted with the great deals on new-fangled tracker mortgages with rates as low as 4.25%.

That's just half a percent above the European Central Bank rate, shaving the bank's profit margin to the bone.

Some cheap lenders, such as AIB, NIB and Bank of Scotland, will pay legal fees, and one, Ulster Bank, gives you a gift of 1,000 as well, just for getting into bed with it.

That's fine and dandy. But who is paying for all of this?

Long-standing customers that's who, - by paying over the odds for their mortgages.

These customers are often on standard variable rates, the old type of mortgage. And they are forking out up to 1% more than they would have to with the juicy tracker deals used to attract new customers.

It's no coincidence that one of the best deals for newbies . . .4.6% (APR) . . . is offered by the same bank (Ulster) that is giving the worst deal to loyal customers on its standard variable rate (5.4%).

First Active doesn't even publicise its standard variable rate any more in the mortgage tables . . . is that because it would languish on the bottom at 5.4%, and because this would alert existing customers to the way they are being ripped off?

Bank of Ireland does quote a rate (5.2%) but it's not exactly earth-shattering. It doesn't bother being competitive because it knows most customers won't check their rate, and even if they do won't bother even to make a call.

The handful who do ring up will be given five-star treatment and instantly ushered onto a more favourable deal.

The problem is that Irish borrowers are too loyal. The nuns and Christian brothers were right about Britain being a den of promiscuity. British borrowers flit off to a new lender on average every two years, and are rewarded accordingly.

Most people here don't even know what interest rate they are on. The few who do know, and who try to make their lender jealous by telling them someone else is making eyes at them, will be instantly rewarded with a mortgage rate reduction.

"All they have to do is pick up the phone. I have never heard of a rate request refused irrespective of what rate they are on, " says Michael Dowling, head of the Independent Mortgage Advisers Federation.

Dowling suggested that lenders should be forced to tell borrowers what rate they are on in their annual mortgage statement, which usually omits this important information.

The best trackers are reserved for those with a lot of equity in their homes, but that is exactly the profile of long-suffering customers on unfavourable standard variables.

The 1% difference between variables and trackers would be worth 171 a month on a 300,000 home loan, or over two grand a year. That's the equivalent of a pre-tax annual wage increase of nearly 4,000.

It would pay back over half of the painful interest rate hikes we have endured in the past couple of years.

So put on your lippy and your little red number and start fluttering your eyelashes at the nearest mortgage provider!

Rates quoted are APRs

ESTATE AGENT SPEAKS THE TRUTH ON PROPERTY SHOCK

HOUSE prices have to fall to make them affordable again. That's nothing new. But the fact that an estate agent said it certainly is.

Unlike other agents, auctioneers Savills HOK admitted there's going to be no soft landing on a bouncy castle, pile of lovely "uffy cushions, big warm feather bed, or whatever is the latest estate agent speak for property downturn.

Prices are going to drop 10% over two years. When you add inflation, that makes for a 20% drop.

"But they went up so much over the last decade, does it really matter?" asked Savills HOK economist Derek Brawn.

He's quite right. That kind of fall would suit buyers but it wouldn't be big enough to keep them out of the market. And it wouldn't be disastrous for sellers, who are already sitting on huge gains.

Why it pays to be a tart
Standard Variable APR Tracker mortgages APR (Mainly existing customers) (Mainly new customers)
A I B 4.95 NIB LTV
Tracker LTV <=60% 4.35 I I B 5.06 BOS
Standard Tracker
All Loan Sizes LTV <=50% 4.39 BOS 5.11
NIB LTV Tracker LTV <=80% 4.43 E B S, BoI, NIB, ICS, Ptsb, 5.2
AIB Tracker LTV <=50% 4.43
Irish Nationwide 5.36
BOS Standard Tracker All Loan Sizes LTV 50%-80% 4.54
Ulster Bank 5.4 UB
First Time Buyer Flexible Tracker All amounts LTV n/a 4.6
First Active 5.4 IIB Tracker > 300K LTV <80% 4.64