First Time Buyer With Low LTV - Best Rates

BernieBernard

My wife and I are looking to buy our first property.

We have a £165,000 deposit and an Agreement In Principle for £85,000 from Barclays. We will consider purchasing a house up to £250,000.

There are two, 2 year tracker mortgages Barclays offer which are of interest to me.

1 - The first has a £999 fee, BBBR + 0.93% for 2 Years (1.43%), then BBBR which is variable, currently 0.50% + 1.99% = 2.49% for term (2.4% APRC ) - 10% overpayments allowed.

2 - The second has no fee, 2 Year Tracker at BBBR + 1.29% for 2 Years - Purchase Only, then BBBR which is variable, currently 0.50% + 3.49% = 3.99% for term (3.7% APRC) - 25% overpayments allowed.

The first option seems to work out cheaper over a 25 year period, even when the different rates of overpayments are taken into account?

Is it standard practice to see out the first 2 years of such a mortgage, then shop around for a better rate and re mortgage and keep doing this every few years?

If so, this seems a bit tedious to me.

Also, I have not shopped around for mortgages apart from using MSE's tool. There is a mortgage from Woolich which has a similar rate to one offered by Barclays mentioned above (Woolich is their provider).

However, HSBC is often mentioned as having very competitive rates at the moment,but they don't track the Bank of England's base rate and set their own SVR after the initial competitive period. This makes me feel uneasy!

Would people with a HSBC mortgage, tend to remortgage after the initial 2 year period (or 5 if that is what they chose)?

I know peoples circumstances are different but I want to get an idea on how to approach maintaining a mortgage.