Advice needed

12months

Hi all

I'm hoping to remortgage to a better rate (currently on 4.54% variable) and have a couple of questions.

I've seen a few fixed rate mortgages for under 2% and I'd like to fix for at least 2 years. I've also seen some good Tracker deals but I've never had a tracker mortgage and I'm a bit worried about interest rates rising if I'm tied into a deal for any length of time so maybe this is not a good option for me? Anyway, the real question here is this: Is there any way to do a quick check online to see if I would be accepted for the mortgage, similar to the kind of checks you can do for credit cards? ie so it doesn't leave a record of the check.

Also, does anyone have any experience of consolidating credit card and loan debts onto a mortgage? If I can do this the amount I would need to borrow would be 75%LTV. It's 10 years since I took out my mortgage and I don't know how these things are viewed in the current financial climate. I have a good credit score so I don't think there will be any problems there.

I just want to get my outgoings minimised so I can start to overpay my mortgage and get debt free as soon as possible.

Thanks for any advice.

MortgageMamma

Hello there


You could opt for a tracker with low fees and no early repayment charges then if rates go up you are free to jump ship and go on a fixed rate - or - just fix for as long as you want whilst the rates are low but bear in mind there will be early repayment charges if you sell within the fixed rate incentive period.


75% loan to value should be fine for debt consolidation if you can afford to borrow the amount you need. Remember you could pay more interest on the debts in the long term in exchange for lowering your currently monthly payments but if you intend to overpay and are disciplined enough perhaps you could offset that somewhat.


I don't know of any online comparison systems that will leave a soft footprint to see if you can get a mortgage - to be fair you would need to approach a lender to do that.


In this day and age there is no need to spend hours trawling the internet for mortgages and applying without knowing you'll be accepted. There are plenty of mortgage brokers about who can search he market for you and match you to the right lender first time.

flashg67

think you will try lenders sites for a soft search - I know Lloyds have one

12months

Thanks MortgageMamma for your advice. I'll take a look at some Trackers and see what they offer. I assumed I'd have to pay a mortgage adviser but maybe that's not the case? I'll phone a couple tomorrow and see what the deal is. I'm determined to overpay and get myself in a better position. Thanks for replying 🙂

12months

Flashg67, thanks, I'll have a look at a couple of sites and see what they have.

getmore4less

One thing you won't find is the evidence that for a given date and a given period(say 10 years) that fixed rates turned out better than good variable rates most of the time.

(with smaller mortgages the fees make serial fixed even less likely to be better)

As long as the rises won't kill you good trackers can often be the better option over a series of short term(5y or less) fixes.

short term fixes don't protect you from rises they just delay the event.
if you can't afford say a 1% rise today what will change so it will be affordable in 2 years if you took a 2y fix?

12months

Good point, getmore4less. I was thinking I would look to change provider again when the fixed rate finished but so far I haven't been very savvy that way. However, I think now that I really want to get finances sorted for the long term and certainly before I retire (15 years away).