Woolwich Lifetime tracker 5.74% - any good

Joyful

xSteve wrote: »

Hi Joyful, what happens if the rates go up? Do you pay the same but effectively more of it is interest?

Yes that's right.

Joyful

_Andy_ wrote: »

If you're referring to the same product this isn't the case, as is evidenced on the KFI -

"Changes in our Base Rate made during the month will take effect from the 1st of the following month"

Apologies .What I should have said is they only change the payment amount once a year although they did advise if the rates change you can call and get it adjusted there and then.

StevesPalm

After spending several years moving from one fixed rate to another and the fact we have a little extra money coming in as a backup each month I finally decided to opt for a re-mortgage to Woolwich's Lifetime Tracker at +0.74%

My current fixed rate was coming to an end 1 month earlier than I thought:rolleyes: but luckily I had already started to poke about for a new deal. My Brother-in-law mentioned he had just remortaged to this tracker and there was only a fee of £35 to pay for the money transfer (and £249 when you settle up)...I was skeptical of such an apparent good deal in the current mortgage climate but he was right.:j

I know a few people have critised barclays/Woolwich for customer service but on the whole I have found it a very easy remortgage so far, my current deal switches to a nasty SVR on 1/7/08 and I spoke with Woolwich for a quote etc on 7/6/08, things have progressed quickly and smoothly with regular emailed updates and I got a text from their solicitors saying that everything is in place to complete on 2/7/08 which if all goes well means I won't have to pay next months fee to my current lender at SVR (extra £215/month)...and I only sent the Mortgage Deed and solicitor questionaire back 2 days ago!

Assuming all goes to plan I will be a very happy customer...so far anyway;)

Cheers
Steve

wafijim

Two things really.
firstly we are very happy with our current set up with an interest only mortgage and pay of chunks of the balance at 10k a go. if we had a repayment mortgage the first third of our time would be paying the interest bit anyway the repayment bit kicks in later as you pay of your mortgage. this gives us greater flexibility to cater for seasonal cash flows. But if the BOE or BBBR rate drops and interest is only adjusted annually. Where is the adjustment made? on a repayment mortgage it works because more of your repayment part takes up the variations.
I think people are right the BOE interest rates are unlikely to fall much further because of exchange rates and impact on oil/gas particularly with Russia and Georgia muddying the water over gas to Europe neither are they likely to rise much with the threat of recession, hence the reason to go with a tracker. For those who like data crunching the bank of England statistics are here
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/rates/baserate.pdf
compare page three to page one and you will see that barclays, Llyodstsb, hsbc, and nat west base rates all follow the BOE rate EXACTLY with only slight delays on a few occaisions of a day or so lag e.g. 8 sep-10sep 1999 (last time it happened) 2 day delay on .25% rise
Kind regards
Wafi