What benifits are best for you in a fixed mortgage?

Jacka87

I posted a thread a week or so ago asking what benifits are most likely to swing you for a specific mortgage when the cost of the mortgage is roughly the same.

Basically my point was that ERCs, the ability to overpay, specific lenders reputation etc may all play a part in how you decide if the costs are much the same.

Obviouslly this will be different for each individual depending on your current situation however I was interested in getting a poll going to see the outcome.

If there ae other factors please comment on them.

Jacka87

I got the ball rolling with ERCs as I feeel that combining the chances of it affecing me with costs this is the one thats most likely to cost me a fortune!

Though overpayment options would be my general preference however due to my circumstances do not feel I will have this luxuary in the coming 5yrs!

RufusA

Not really sure what this poll will tell you. For me it's ALL of the above, as well as:

Ease of application process (I hate having to photocopy and get witnessed 3 years worth of accounts etc.)
Speed of application - I would avoid Abbey due to their current backlogs.
Lending criteria (some lenders don't like/understand people who run their own companies and can't produce six months of payslips!).
Interest calculation frequency (i.e. daily for overpayments).

In the end I chose the Post Office (aka Bristol & West aka Bank of Ireland), for most of the above reasons, and it helped they were one of the cheapest at the time ;-)

In reality with todays market it's less a considered balance of all the criteria and more a case of quickly grabbing the cheapest available before they notice their competitors have all put their rates up!

YMMV - Rufus.

Jacka87

Thanks for the views rufus, I appreciate its obviouslly all of the above however would like to get a preffered ticked which is why I avoided the all of avove option in the poll.

Good to hear that speed of application, I suppose thats one that I overlooked but would honestly not really be an issue for me, though maybe after I re-mortgage I may change my mind! lol

Katgrit

For me it was mainly the long-term (or current) SVR. I know that you said in your earlier thhread that no-one knows what SVR's will be after the end of a fixed deal, but lenders generally follow a pattern. I got my mortgage 6 years ago on a 2 year deal with Nationwide, cant even remember if it was fixed or tracker one now. I knew full well that even if i could afford the cost associated with re-mortgaing (valuation, product reservation fee etc) I'd never get round to doing it, so long term SVR was very important!! While i could have got those first 2 years at a discounted, cashback blah blah blah money off cheaper interest rate elsewhere with a different provider i knew those 2 years saving would soon be lost when it jumped to that providers SVR. So i looked at some charts comparing lenders SVR over the past 20 yrs or so. And even if though the SVR's varied as interest rates changed the providers that has been lowest always tended to be lowest, IYSWIM.

As it was when i came to the end of my 2 yr deal i was still paying less than other lenders new discounted fixed deals anyway so i stuck. And now interest rates have come down even more I'm only paying 2.5%. Glad i did what i did.

I know my lazy bones well enough to know what would work best!!:cool:

Jacka87

Thats made me strat considering the SVR as a more important factor than previous. I had ignored the svr previouslly as I felt it would prob chop and change depending on who was in charge of each bank at individual times. Though would like to see which banks have been consistantly lower. Would it be possible for you to tell me where you got that info from or is that to far back?

Katgrit

I have no idea. although it may have been Nationwide itself that showed me the graph, but my mother always has her nose in financial tables and gubbins, and she agreed. Think at the time it was a toss up between Halifax and Nationwide as being the most favourable long-term two with regards to SVR's. Its like Asda being voted cheapest supermarket 11 years a row, some things are cheaper, some things are more expensive, sometimes Tesco have some good offers on for 6 months or so, its just a general jist i remember i got at the time. Things do go up and down but repuation and SVR's dont vary that much in the grand scheme of things i find. I'll see if i can find it, or just ring and ask my Mum. She'll LOVE spending a week routing through stuff trying to find some chart or graoh somewhere if it involves money in anyway shape or form. Some people would say she's frugal but ha ha ha in our house it was call stingey!! (mind you, its engraved a good moneysense into me!)

EDIT: Looked everywhere, googled everywhere and cant find nothing re: historical svr's. Not without lokking up each lender individually. Looks like FD and HSBC looking good nowadays.