Too good to be true ???

MtbMarty

Hi, my current 2yr deal on my Abbey repayment mortgage finishes next month and their best offer on a tracker is 5.89% for 3yrs with a fee of £824!!!
I was lured by the attractive tracker rate of First Direct but they pulled it the day i phoned :rolleyes:
I heard a media add for my local bank ("Northern Bank" - N.Ireland) so made an appointment, they have offered me a low rate tracker based on the fact i have a low loan to value (ltv).
It is 0.59% above Northern Bank base rate which is 4.5% = 5.09% for no fixed term and the £799 fee is being waived if i open a Northern Bank Plus account which has a small quarterly fee(£33). I'm not concerned about the account fee and have been meaning to change banking from the Abbey anyway.
My question is, if the Bank of England base rate falls will the Northern Banks own base rate fall too or will they go up and down as they please. Also, are most trackers based on the Bank of England base rate or the Lenders base rate
Bottom line is...is this a good deal
Thanks M

midflight

I was lured by the attractive tracker rate of First Direct but they pulled it the day i phoned

Same story here

If you find any decent alternatives to the fee-free offset base rate tracker that FD pulled last week, I'd be very interested to hear about them!

dbarnes

I had a friend who had the same issue with First Direct.... Do they not need to honour the advert or did it have a closing date?

midflight

It said on the website it was available until Oct 31st, but also that funding was limited, and may be withdrawn at any time.

I'm so angry I could almost swear!

BadgerMan78

Hi all, I too missed out on the FD offset deal by a matter of hours (how frustrating)!!

The new FD deal doesn't look anywhere near as good with the base rate at 5.49% and then +0.99% above. Has anyone seen a good alternative now FD have withdrawn their good deal?

Mr_Friendly

HSBC have a decent rate which I think is 0.89% above BoE base rate for term of mortgage and £599 arrangement fee. It's a decent tracker given the current market position with mortgages at present.

_Andy_

OP - you need to ring Northern Bank and ask them the question about what/how it tracks. They should've explained this to you anyway.

BadgerMan78

Thanks Mr Friendly. Can you offset against the HSBC mortgage too or is this just a low rate tracker deal?

mic200202

MtbMarty wrote: »

Hi, my current 2yr deal on my Abbey repayment mortgage finishes next month and their best offer on a tracker is 5.89% for 3yrs with a fee of £824!!!
I was lured by the attractive tracker rate of First Direct but they pulled it the day i phoned :rolleyes:
I heard a media add for my local bank ("Northern Bank" - N.Ireland) so made an appointment, they have offered me a low rate tracker based on the fact i have a low loan to value (ltv).
It is 0.59% above Northern Bank base rate which is 4.5% = 5.09% for no fixed term and the £799 fee is being waived if i open a Northern Bank Plus account which has a small quarterly fee(£33). I'm not concerned about the account fee and have been meaning to change banking from the Abbey anyway.
My question is, if the Bank of England base rate falls will the Northern Banks own base rate fall too or will they go up and down as they please. Also, are most trackers based on the Bank of England base rate or the Lenders base rate
Bottom line is...is this a good deal
Thanks M

Its a pretty decent rate all things considered.No they don't have to pass on BOE rate changes as its linked to their own variable rate.The confirmation of this should be in the Key Facts Illustration they gave you (didnt they !!). The reason this appears such a good deal is that it is essentially an offset type of deal (it wont say it the documents though) where they use the fact you have a bank a/c with them to work with the interest rate. You may want to look at this plus a/c to see if they require you to have a certain amount in there or lodged each month.I think the £132 pa for the a/c is what they have really got their eye on - it wont be long before it adds up.

Jonbvn

BadgerMan78 wrote: »

Thanks Mr Friendly. Can you offset against the HSBC mortgage too or is this just a low rate tracker deal?

HSBC do not do offest mortgages per se, since FD (an HSBC arm) offer them.