ING Direct mortgage

rrwfotr

In Japan they have had 0% - 1% base rates for years now....

GoToGal

Hmm, I'm no economist but I have a feeling we won't have that rate for years. Most reports I've read seem to think we will be in recovery in 12 - 18 months.

ms_jones

I wouldn't pay a penny more than i'd have to.

the best thing you can do is save that money and keep it in reserve. Either for a rainy day or invest it in something.

you can get relatively high interest rates on some accounts where ou pay in a regular monthly sum.

hOLD ONTO YOUR CASH.

When teh interests pcik up back to 5%, then by all means pay off a segment then.

In teh meantime relex and enjoy the low mortgage payment.

reck_uk

Has anyone had confirmation through that the interest rate will drop the 1% for the January payment? When will we know?

costingbunny_2

reck_uk wrote: »

Has anyone had confirmation through that the interest rate will drop the 1% for the January payment? When will we know?

Last month I got my letter on 22 November 2008 to advise of the new rate so I guess this will be same (although might be delayed with the Christmas post).

reck_uk

Ah ok, so we are looking towards the end of the month before we are notified. I hope they do pass on the interest rate cut.

rrwfotr

I spoke to ING yesterday and the customer service person feed back that all changes in base rate will be passed on to all customers on the flexible product, or customers currently on fixed that will be revering to flexible mortgage. Incidentally the customer service person feedback that all flexible mortgage related products from ING had been pulled from the market recently.

reck_uk

Really, oh thats good to hear.

Interesting what you say about them pulling the product off the market as well.

mr_jetlag

costingbunny wrote: »

Last month I got my letter on 22 November 2008 to advise of the new rate so I guess this will be same (although might be delayed with the Christmas post).

I've posted this earlier but it's worth repeating: ING have told me they make any interest rate change decisions on the 20th of the month in which the change occurs (or nearest working day); they do not normally send out any letters beforehand.

I have been very suspicious of them in the past with regards to the cuts in rate but they have (so far) stuck to the T&Cs in their mortgage products.

Also, @ms jones: normally I would agree that high interest rate savings is a good idea; however, my last such foray was into Icesave... So I think paying down our mortgage is a good way to siphon off the extra cash if you've already maxed out your ISAs. Note that for higher rate taxpayers the "savings" in reducing your mortgage balance even at these rates works out to about 4.8% AER.

MoneySavingNovice

Mr Jetlag - thanks for your post above.

Its interesting for me to note that there was some-one else in a similar position to me (Savings with Icesave and Mortgage with ING Direct)

I agree that paying down our mortgage is a good way to siphon off the extra cash if you've already maxed out your ISAs.

I was not totally sure what you mean by:-

Note that for higher rate taxpayers the "savings" in reducing your mortgage balance even at these rates works out to about 4.8% AER.

until I also did the maths and concluded that in order to break-even based upon a mortgage rate of 2.89% as a 40% tax-payer you would need to get a minimum savings rate of 4.8% AER, excluding from an ISA obviously. I worked it out to be 4.82%

I also calculated that for a basic rate taxpayer at 20% you would need to get 3.61%