Stick with Halifax for remortgage or try for different lender?

MonkeyDr

Hi

I would welcome a little guidance if anyone knows whether we should just take a customer retention product with Halifax when we remortgage, or try for a better rate elsewhere.

Outstanding amount is about 395,000, and property is worth maybe 750,000 (we definitely have <60% LTV). We're on a repayment mortgage with 23 years left.

When we took out the 2 year fix in 2014 we were a couple earning about £55,000 each.

But now
- my OH is an IT contractor on £600 / day. Started this in June 2014 and contract has been rolled over ever since (current one runs to December 2016)
- we have a baby
- I am on maternity leave. Pay is minimal for next couple of months, but then I will get full pay (now 60k pa ish) but be on accrued AL for August and September, before returning to work in October. Obviously there will be nursery costs from then.
- My salary from October is not yet confirmed as working pattern not yet confirmed. Minimum will be 25k-ish for 3 days / week, or 42k-ish for 5 days. Both have the option of adding 40% on for out of hours work.

Also
- I work for the NHS, and I have a training contract for a region (with at least 3 years to go) but my actual contract for the next employer is only for 1 year
- I have a BTL flat. Rent is £2100 / month and current interest-only BTL mortgage is £660 / month. The mortgage is £240,000 and property is worth around £550,000. We prefer to keep this all separate, but it definitely pays for itself. I pay appropriate tax, keep it in good condition etc etc.

We have perfect credit histories, pay off credit cards in full each month etc. Only debt is about £3k of outstanding student loan. We have overpaid current mortgage by about 10k over the last 2 years.

We probably want another 2 year fix, and the rate that Halifax are offering is 2.24%. However I have seen a few rates around 1.5% floating about the place. I appreciate we aren't that straightforward, and wondered if people thought it was worth our while trawling around other lenders, or whether we should just be grateful for what we have and stick with it.

Many thanks.

amnblog

If you want a better rate than 2.24% there are plenty available that you can access. I can think of one off of the top of my head that could save you £2k v the rate you have been offered. Consult a good broker.

MonkeyDr

Thank you, that's exactly the answer I was looking for.

(We feared that our variety of constraints might put lenders off, despite the equity etc)

Best wishes

MD

MonkeyDr

Thank you again for the advice.

We did see a broker, and have now completed on a 2 yr fix at 1.54%. Definitely worth doing, and it also comes with an offset account (that we hadn't even considered) that is going to come in very handy now that the Santander 123 accounts are cutting interest.