Anyone tempted to ditch their low APR trackers yet?

SpeedSouth

Hi,

Has anyone made the jump to a tracker yet and ditched their low APR trackers?

I have 71k @ 1.49% above base with HSBC but running some figures I'm tempted to look at the fixes again.

Obviously the fees of some these are pretty steep given the relatively low mortgage.

It can't be low now before the first 0.25 or 0.5 increase which would put it above some of the fixed deals currently available.

getmore4less

You won't get base + 1.49% back

back into the new deal cycle every few years.

As the loan gets smaller the fees even small ones will be a killer.

£71k over 2 years @ £500pm, 0.5% margin fees need to be less than £655

SpeedSouth

Yeah I know the fees start to become prohibitive as the loan reduces.

I was looking for longer term.

My thinking at present is take out a 5 year fix at 2.25-2.7 (mortgage dependent). Over a 10 year term.

When it ends in 5 years I'd hope I would be in a position to pay it off if there were no good deals on the market at that point...

I'd be around £3k worse off after those 5 years if the rates didn't change mind you

It's obviously a gamble as to where you see the rates going.

silvercar

I have lifetime base+0.75% and lifetime base+0.89% running. Although they are interest only so fees are small in comparison to amount borrowed, I am nervous to move to a fix because once the lifetime part is gone it is gone forever - so it isn't one set of fees I have to allow for but a set every fix.

SpeedSouth

For sure if I was on lifetime that low I wouldn't give it a 2nd thought as the chances are rates will not be above 4% base in 5 years.

It's more the certainty at this point. When we took it out we had 2 salarys and no kids, now from August we will have 1 salary and 3 kids.

So that is the only real reason for the consideration to provide a degree of certainty.

ARW1986

I was in HSBC about 2 weeks ago paying money in. I have a mortgage with them and they asked if I wanted to look into a fix as they had been emailed advising that the base rate at HSBC was set to go up imminently. I'm still tied into a 5year fix for near enough 4 more years so it's not relevant to me.