Diesel

Thanks to the chaos at Northern Rock (enjoy your bonuses MD's...) I have to re-mortgage from a great fixed rate flexible product. Best deal I see so far is Woolwich 5.69% base rate tracker for 3yrs with £1000 total costs. 1% early redemption penalty in first 3yrs. 10% overpayment permitted pa and drawdown avail.

Base rates will come down wont they as I have never bothered with a tracker before - it was 4% base 3 yrs ago and its 5%. Putting it up further would surely create even more recession??? Just guessing here!

Cheers

D

lozgti

We're with the Woolwich! *cough* sorry.

Sounds ok.Thankfully we got 10 year fix.

I reckon rates will soon be back to the normality of 7-8% rather than the pittance that they are now which has caused a lot of the problems we are seeing.

Cheap money and generous lending.Don't think that will happen again for a while.

Coffin Dodger

Well that depends doesn't it. The reason the interest rates are up is to try and reign in inflation however is still spiralling up so further rises may be needed to bring it under control. Ultimately that's what matters so if the housing market has to suffer as a result then so be it.

It's a gamble if you're concerned and would struggle to pay you mortgage if the rates went up another % then go for a fixed. If you've got some spare disposable income each month then it could be worth the risk and may save you loads in the long term.

PeteBrant

Base rates will only come down if inflation allows it, and at the moment that seems unlikely. Especially seeing as the inflationary pressure is not coming from people spending too much, or having too much spare, it is coming from essentials. I.e. people have no choice but to pay them.

Worth remembering that historically speaking, both inflation and interest are on the low side. If you work around a 7-8% figure you won't be far off.

In other words, if 7% interest means that you cannot afford your mortgage, then it will be worth looking to see what sort of long term fixed rate deals you can get (currently around 6.6%)

Diesel

I'm being offered a 5.89 fixed for three with Nationwide I think. Sounds like I should be thinking about that. Good to get the viewpoints here as I was so used to the fixed Northern Rock's 4.95%!

D

al4x1

I'm with the woolwich but haven't fixed mine as I wanted maximum flexibility, fixing ties you in to big fees and obviously up front costs, I went with the lifetime tracker but at the time I was able to get 0.24 above base with no fees or redemption.

If I were you the woolwich tracker deals also include a 0.89 above base which may be more but will be negligible bearing in mind it has no application fee and no redemption penalty if you wanted to get out. If rates drop or you can get cheap rates in the future it gives flexibility to swap whenever you want.

PaulC72

We fixed in April 10 year with Halifax @ 5.69 the next day they increased all their rates. Personally I cannot see any significant lowering of rates just the curent .1% ers that have been happening, if it was me I would fix now ride out the storm and reevaluate in 3 years sometimes a certainty helps you sleep

rb5_336

We were just about to fix 10 years @ 5.59 with the Woolwich and we had an unexpected 40k tax bill, so needed to adjust our figures. By the time we were able todo so, it was up to 5.77..darn!

I agree with comments above, I'm not a risk taker, and i can sleep at night knowing I can easily pay my mortgage currently, but would struggle if it were a lot higher, say double. So to safe guard the situation i play the safe card and go fixed medium term.

Also I agree with inflation the way it is, it's unlikely rates are coming down any time soon. I think we're actually lucky in that i'd say the BOE would rather like to up the rates to curb inflation to get it back down to 2%, but may be getting pressurised because if the semi-recession we're in.

Diesel

It's D Day! Guess this 5.59% Woolwich deal is still the best? Cheers.

D (Day)

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Depends how close to limit that is for you. We had a tracker for a first mortgage 2 years ago, just as interest rates went up by .25% 4 quarters in a row. That basically meant we were paying £100 a month than when we started.

Yes, it went back down again, but due to the curent state of the economy, we have just switched to a 3 year fixed at 6.2%. It is basically £50 a month more than our last deal, but I know that is what it will be for 3 years.

I will never go 'tracker' again!

Diesel

Interesting reading this again afte 2 months!

I went for a 'gut instinct' C&G tracker for the first time ever which means I am paying less now than I was on the original 'cheap 4.99%' fixed Northern Rock mortgage. Pay the stupid N Rock *ankers their silly bonuses I say and sack all non committal IFA's that have no ***** (crystal or otherwise . D

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

Just working out which way to jump at the moment... Halifax say that they will offer the full 1.5% to its customers so that will be 4.29% for me. Which will knock over £200 a month off my payments.

I think I will take a 10 year fixed on that

Diesel

Kieran if you can get 10 years on that history says YES!!! IMHO D

Diesel

Trackers come down - that is the whole point of them. If not mention you may want our 'bail out' money back, sharpish!!! D

fast bloke

You sure the 10 year fixed will drop by that much? I would be astonished if you could get that deal. Their SVR will drop, but the fixed rates for new deals won't.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

Waiting to see at the moment. It's not a new deal as such as I am an existing customer.

PaulC72

I would htink if you manage to get a long term fixed rate for under 5% you would be lucky, Lloyds have currently pulled all there trackers using under review as the excuse, it may be that unless you have one already it may be even harder to get onto a new one in the foreseeable?

It may be that because rates are so low they will want to try and get people to commit to the slightly highwer fixed terms providing then some sort of guarentee of funds which may envoke lending...I don't know no one does speculation is all anyone has IMO.

Personally I am just sitting back watching what is happening as it may be in 6-12 months time interest rates sky rocket....not much I can do were fixed at 5.79% so not really effected eitherway.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

There are some shorter term ones at under 5% available now:

Best Fixed Rate Mortgage - Fixed Rate Remortgage - UK Online Mortgage Broker - Charcol

PaulC72

So I see but the real rate is so much more

Fees


£3,750.00


£35.00


£99.00


£0.00


£400.00


£500.00


Up to 3% to 28/02/2011

Christ only knows who would pay that sort of arrangement fee?

The one by Abby is nearly £1500!!!! so taking those into account pushes up the actual rate if you are calculating real terms.

Diesel

Ridiculous isnt it - they also mostly just bump the massive fee on top of the mortgage so you are paying interest on it as well (even if you have it as cash, that cash doesnt come off the mortgage due to the fee).

What's a Charcol booking fee? They get hundreds in commission from the lender for arranging a mortgage as is. AVOID.

My broker (who was fab and worth the fee after all the chasing he did for me) got £600 commission for my mortgage. If he mentioned a fee on top I'd be off elsewhere. This was probably a total of a days work after all...

D

PaulC72

Charcoal do not have a fee on that post I put up I imagine they use it as a sales tool to make them look good as they dont charge anything else from the people taking out the mortgage through them, however with an arrangement fee like that you would be stupid to anyway.

GaryK

We're looking at the mo as our 3 yr fixed rate (4.95) deal with NR ends on December 31st and then it goes up to 7.34 :O Gotta love it aint ya, our taxes bail out those morons at NR and then to add insult to injury they want to charge us like a wounded bull.

Anyway looking to move, best deal we found the other day (pre cut) wa 5.5% tracker offset mortgage, quite fancy an offset anyone else got one?

Cheers

Gary

fast bloke

Two hours plus interview time at a push -

fast bloke

Give it a week to settle down. Abbey and Lloyds are still pushing for market share, so the 'under review' thing is actually true. They probably had 200 people working for two weeks on new rates if base dropped by 0.5, 0.75 or 1. As it happened, no-one saw this coming, so they don't know what level they can lend at and still make money without being innundated by applications from every new mortgage in the UK. (Abbey made this mistake once before - Around three years ago. They had called a rate increase while everyone else called a cut, but Abbey reduced their trackers while everyone else increased them. The deals only lasted about 48 hours, but it took them 10 weeks to sort out the backlog - They got hammered for cr4p customer service)

ScoobyWon't

My mortgage deal, with Abbey, ended on Monday, at which point it jumped up to 6.9%. Since then, Abbey have agreed to pass on the cut in rates.

Should I wait for the rate cut, or just plump for a new mortgage with someone else and hope for a better rate?

fast bloke

wait

ScoobyWon't

How long?

fast bloke

about 9 inches, but I'm married, so you can't





No - I would personally wait a couple of months, but trying to predict the future has its pitfalls. The best deal you will get now won't be that different from paying the new SVR. If you go for a new deal you will be tied in for a couple of years at least, but if you take the SVR option you will be free to move when they work out how they can attract new business without getting snowballed

NotoriousREV

We had an offer from Abbey on the table of base + 1.09% on a lifetime deal. I think we'll take it and keep an eye on the fixed deals.

Diesel

Ok - think it was the layout that confused D