Remortgage

Thoughts? Rates are likely to fall before the election, and remain for a few months following.

After that, who knows?

Have you got long before you actually move onto a new rate Ugo?

Mine ends in July. Have accepted a 2 yr fixed for now but can always cancel if something better comes along before then. I agree the £999 fees are hard to swallow.

The banks are obviously trying to price in what they think the rates will do into their fixed rates, hence the mortgage rates already being well below current base rate. You might outsmart them, you might not.

Does that mean you will sit on the tracker as it is currently, and then switch to a fix should something appealing enough turn up?

Our 5 year 1.49% fix ends in January 2025, going to start looking from July this year.

Unfortunately we still owe 6 figures, but that is what a house extension will do for how much you owe 😐️

Yes, I'm planning to stick with it for now. I keep an eye on the 2 and 5 year fixed rate offers as they give a decent indication of how the banks expect the base rate to change, if they're offering 4-4.5% over 2 and 5 years now they're probably expecting the base rate to drop and stay lower. If we ever get back to the fixed rates being around 2% or lower I might go for one of those to protect against anything causing significant volatility, but I'm also planning to increase my overpayments. That may be limited on a fixed rate so I'd have to consider whether I'm likely to want to exceed the overpayment threshold for a given fixed offer.

TBH it depends when I get to remortgaging (Dec '24). If say a 2 or 3% rise in the interest rate suddenly means I can't afford that month's mortgage payment if I'm on a tracker, I probably will go with a fixed.

If I can handle that, I'll take the view. But it's also about the overall cost of the product, right? People talk about fees of a thousand or two but on a mortgage payment it can pay for itself over the duration of a product quite easily.

So early repayment is a good thing to have in your case.

I hate to break it to you, but 2009-2022 interest rates were not normal. It was effectively free money.

Fixed rates are highly unlikely to go back to 2%.

We are now back in the normal interest rate region. Some cuts are likely from the second half of this year, but don't expect much more than a 1% fall in the base rate in the next couple of years.

A fee free, exit free tracker feels like a good compromise for the next 12-18 months if it is lower than the SVR .

What a depressing thought that things are going back there, and it is me saying that! 😉

Things settling down at 3-5% would indicate growth which we should all be hoping for.

Ja, growth is low, inflation is coming down.

I said if, not when. I'm not really expecting rates to fall to 2% again, but if they do I'd be tempted to lock it in for obvious reasons.

No mortgage and working part-time because i want to and not pulling off pension yet before 65 was my aim, got there before I was 58 with hardwork and good decisions. Over the years fixed rate deals and over payments has saved me.a lot. As mentioned above rates now are normal compared to recent low rates and I also remember when it was double digits. 😞

I can't remember the exact figures as it was so long ago but when my fixed mortgage was up I managed to remortgage at 0.5% lower. Simply keeping my payments the same knocked 7 years off the term. Something for everyone remortgaging to think about.