mortgage - time to fix?

adencooled

mortgage - £90000
time - 21 1/2 years
approx value of house 200k

currently on a tracker and pay around £400 a month (so assume interest rate is 1.5% (must track at approx 1% above base))

could get a fixed from natwest at approx 4% for 5 years so monthly cost will be £520


whats peoples advice on this. do i press the button now or hold fire (i.e. interest rates have to hit 3% for me to get hit)

Peelerfart

In my opinion, hold on to your tracker but pay as if you've fixed.

beecher2

Save the £120 a month (or more if you can) and hold fire the moment, I think.

redmalc

similar position to you and i think i am going to hold on to the tracker at the moment given the level of mortgage

tomskimum

Hi,

Am thinking about this situation as well. Our mortgage is at 0.72% above base, life time tracker with the Woolwich. I leave Uni in 18 months (mature student) so we are managing on just over 1 salary as I work part time. Current payments are about £520 per month.

Peelerfart

Same answer for you too I think tomskimum 0.72 above base is a very good rate.

neil40

We are in similar situation.Have a £114k mortgage with house value around £230k currently at base rate +0.99%.Thinking about long term fix but will loose the good lifetime deal with Alliance & leicester.Big decisions ahead!

GMS

This is a question everybody wants the answer to. Unfortunately the committee setting the rates are at odds with each other so if they dont know how can we be expected to!!

You need to look beyond current rates. Whilst some trackers are superb at the moment and cannot be matched, sometimes by a distance, the currently available fixed rates are historically low. When rates rise so will the fixed rates available which means sticking to the tracker for a possible short period will hinder the rates available for the longer term fixed.

If an affordable fixed rate is available for a decent length of time then it is worth consodering now whilst rates are still low.