"All these people with fixed rates"

beecher

I see from the other thread that you bought a year ago at 84k with a 6k deposit so you must still owe 77k. I'd be amazed if your house is worth more than you paid for it - it'd be the about the only one in the UK worth more than this time last year!

As such your only option is to seriously overpay while you can - you say you're going to pay £1000 a month which I think you really have to in order to be able to get another deal. If you do that for the rest of the year you will hopefully make it under 90% LTV. Good luck.

ToMonkey

I fixed at 4.9% about 4 years ago, I have till 2020 to go.

I no longer care about the interest rate all those worries are gone so for me I was happy to do that.

Some people I know have got lower rates now but no security in my mind. I can easily afford the mortgage so its fine.

Whether it goes up or not thats the gamble some people are happy taking, I'm not. One fixed fee everyone month suits me fine.

Plus with house prices dropping friends have gone to remortgage and can't as they won't lend them the money, another worry for me thats gone.

When the fixed deal ends so does the mortgage. Happy Days :T

kriss_boy

beecher wrote: »

I see from the other thread that you bought a year ago at 84k with a 6k deposit so you must still owe 77k. I'd be amazed if your house is worth more than you paid for it - it'd be the about the only one in the UK worth more than this time last year!

We only got the place for 84K whist others sold for well into the 90s because the place was a DIY nightmare.

Asides from having a new kitchen and double glazing the decor and standard or worksmanship throughout the house was horrific, laughable infact.

Id reckon we've only spent about £1700/£1800 on the place and with that we've...

...replaced all the doors, facings, skirtings (even some standards). Replastered and put coving up. Complete replacement of the bathroom. Replaced and relocated the hot water cyclinder upstairs to give extra storage space. Renewed much of the copper piping, new cold water tank and put new sockets, switches and light fittings.

To be honest that list goes on and on and includes the garden. I shop around and have friends in the trade so I can get things at discount. Ive done most of the work myself because Ive grown up watching my dad single handedly renovate our family homes.

But your right, either way we need to up the overpaying. Ive created a simple spreadsheet mapping out the next 2 years at different levels of overpaying.

While the rate remains at only 1% for us its pretty shameful to not up the overpaying to about a grand, even if its only for 2 or 3 months.

Jacka87

ToMonkey

I fixed at 4.9% about 4 years ago, I have till 2020 to go.

I no longer care about the interest rate all those worries are gone so for me I was happy to do that.

Why are you posting on one thread saying that you have fixed until 2020 an no longer care about interest rates yet you are ranting on another thread about being charged a fee to try and get a mortgage that you where rejected for? I am confused with that statement. COuld you explain???

ToMonkey

Jacka87 wrote: »

ToMonkey
I fixed at 4.9% about 4 years ago, I have till 2020 to go.

I no longer care about the interest rate all those worries are gone so for me I was happy to do that.

Why are you posting on one thread saying that you have fixed until 2020 an no longer care about interest rates yet you are ranting on another thread about being charged a fee to try and get a mortgage that you where rejected for? I am confused with that statement. COuld you explain???

Yes I want to build a loft conversion, NR will not extend my mortgage they will only give me a secured loan for the amount at 5% ontop of their base rate of 4.97 therefore its almost 10% variable. If the rates went up then I could soon be at 15-20% on 30k of my mortgage (Secured loan part)

Therefore I was looking to remortgage at 4.99 for 10 years for the full amount so the rate is practically the same. I am happy with my fixed rate but cannot get more money to do improvements. I have no wish to move and even though the loft would not add 30k value, Its a home to me the value of it is not important.

My other rant is because I was charged 200 and got nothing out of it, anyway I've calmed down a bit today.

benjo

I certainly remember interest rates shooting up to 15%! in 1990 fortunately they didnt stay there long but 8% was not unusual during that period of time.

To fix or not to fix? only you can answer that, advantages of fixing are security of knowing your monthly payment will not change for that given period of time - ok you might wince each time interest rates drop from there on in - but ask yourself how much further they can possibly drop?

The real question perhaps is when to fix, you could hold out for further rate drops but nobody knows if that will happen, perhaps we have seen/are at the lowest point now.

I took a 5 year fix for 4.49%, I do wonder if that was the right decision since I would be pretty shocked if I can find a rate similar in 5 years time - perhaps a 10 year fix would have been better but rates offered were not attractive, only time will tell.

snarffie

ToMonkey wrote: »

Yes I want to build a loft conversion, NR will not extend my mortgage they will only give me a secured loan for the amount at 5% ontop of their base rate of 4.97 therefore its almost 10% variable. If the rates went up then I could soon be at 15-20% on 30k of my mortgage (Secured loan part)

This is the ENORMOUS downside of fixing for such a long time, as it ties you to a single lender, which leaves you dangling by the short and curlies, so to speak when your circumstances change (and over such a long period, this is pretty much inevitable). I assume that you can exit your mortgage after year 5 for no penalty...?

I quite like fixes, but anything less than 3 years is expensive (fees) and anything over five years is too long term for me. I fixed the last few times for two years each until a light bulb moment pushed me into a tracker.

Different strokes and all that.

snarff

Mike1999

I've noticed that fixed rates are starting to rise and dong a bit of research on various websites, it would seem that 5 year and 10 year money is rising - here's a selection of coverage at the mo:

http://www.mortgage.org.uk/consumers-should-secure-fixed-rate-mortgages-19179653.html


http://www.mortgagesolutions-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=857939

Back in the early 90's interest rates went up to 15% as benjo mentioned and the resulting learnings from back then is that inflation will come back – God knows when of course but 5 year SWAP went as low as 3.01% in early January and now seems to be in the rage 3.08% to 3.28%. 2 year SWAP is impacted by shorter term LIBOR rates and is still going down currently 1.90%.

You can track the swap rates at http://www.swap-rates.com/ or to track both SWAP and LIBOR daily try http://www.mortgagesforbusiness.co.uk/content/BuyToLet/LandlordInformationZone/MoneyMarkets.aspx

There's certainly a case for fixing now and avoiding the risk of 15%!!! :eek:

Apologies for all the links!

Mike1999

kriss_boy here's an article on the Times re interest rates now but it doesn't really mention how quickly they shot up before and I couldn't find anything in my quick search - hope this aids your research

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article6282701.ece

kriss_boy

Surely upping the IR significantly is the last thing the economy needs right now.

Isnt it more a question of when will it return to something normal rather than something overly high?