Me again ;-)

My mortgage is coming to the end of the deal that I took out 2 years ago. Basically I had a tracker deal which was linked to the Bank of England base rate which as you may know has been pretty good. Now I'm in a dilemma as to whether or not to go on one of these trackers again for 2 years or to go for a fixed rate for say 2 or 3 years. I never like to be fixed to something for too long incase I miss out on something. I'm quite happy to stay with my current lender (Yorkshire Building Society).

Just wondered, without prying into your personal details too much, what you guys think of the various deals that are on offer at the moment. Has anyone heard good advice re the B of E rates going up or down ? I'm not convinced they will go down any further.

Thank you ! :-)

Hmmm...its a difficult one... I was recently looking into another mortgage and was actually going to go for a discounted rate, for a 2 year period with no early redemption fees... purely because its swings and roundabouts and I wanted the minimum monthly payment I could find. With regards to interest rates, they might go down one more time, but I do feel they will be on the rise soon. Certainly, house sales here (midlands) have fallen off DESPITE the Estate Agents hype...purely because there are more houses on the market, but the sellers are being greedy and the buyers are being choosy...

Therefore they may drop it to keep us spending, but, they WILL go back up again, and I pity those who are mortgaged up to the hilt, because it is not going to be pleasant when it bursts :(

Now how often have I been told about interest rate hikes and property price crashes in the last few years.
Sorry can't help with mortgage advice but I bought my house a 4 years ago without a mortgage and was told time and time again not to buy because property prices were about to fall etc. invest the money elsewhere and wait for the crash, mmm well this place is now worth more the 3 times what I paid for it !

Ingrid

Its a bit different buying a house without a mortgage, to buying one with. The only money you are risking is your own. You can't get a 3 bed semi-house for less than 190K here, so there's not many of us that have that kind of money sat around here.

Its quite clear (again here where property is very much in demand) that buyers are asking too much - its a proven fact that people are putting in offers for property and the surveys are coming in at 30-40K LESS than the estate agents have valued the property at - so if thats not the estate agents trying to keep the market active I don't know what is. 4 years ago it was very different - you would have been mad not to buy a house then. Personally, I bought two years ago and made 80K in one year when I sold. But I wouldn't buy now...prices won't crash, but interest rates will go up a bit and that will panic people... I'm just watching ofr it to stabilise.

Oh tell me about it. We are doing a house up and the estate agent said when it was finished it would be worth £200k so we spent some more thinking oh its fine we can get a bigger mortgage with the equity. Estate agent still at £200k. Surveyor valued it at £170k. Leaving us with a £13k shortfall that we had already spent!!!!!!!!!!!!

In terms of interest rates though we have gone with a tracker just last month for 2 years!
We were going towards fixed but our mortgage advisor said he has personally got a tracker because although he doesnt think they'll go lower it would be a big climb for it to be higher than the fixed rates most banks are offering!!

It just happened with me - cost me £500 to find out the *insert appropriate swearword* estate agents had over-valued the house we were going to buy by 30K. The seller wouldn't come down at all - therefore his house is still on the market (while he remains blissfully convinced it will sell) and we are £500 down . And apparently it is happening a lot - 3 this week in the village have fallen through for the same reason. Banks are not taking the risks - its just too much money.

What peoples houses are worth in their minds are NOT what sellers will pay for them. Its a buyers market now.

Different problem...my five year deal is up this month and we want to pay off in full what we owe (27K) before we are tied down with any continuing mortgage deal... have cancelled the endowment payments, worth buttons , have complained for being mis sold the policy and won but only offered £1500 compo :(.

Peoples/familys advice at the moment is split down the middle. Pay it off in one camp, in the other camp, you should never pay it off in full? Anyone have any thoughts/advice

Ged

We have a Virgin One account which is the bank account/mortgage in one. It is excellent and they are everso professional more so than any Bank/mortgage company I have ever dealt with. The only draw back is when you look at your account balance and you have a f88k off big overdraft !! :D :D

Lucy

Hi

Why dont you pay to see a financial advisor (I think bout £100) and get some proffesional advice? Personally I would love to be able to pay off my mortgage it would make me happy to know that the banks are no longer earning interest of me.

Thank you for all your replies. Very helpful and interesting :-)

I'm tempted to go back to a Tracker type mortgage again for 2 years which would basically make our interest % approx. 3.65% for the first year and 4.15% for the second year. The fixed rate for 2 years that we've been offered is at 3.95% which is still pretty damn low :-) And for 3 years fixed rate the interest is 4.24%.

It's such a difficult market to try and guess at isn't it !

I won't pay for a financial advisor, they'll all tell you different things anyway, even the independent ones as they all get a different amount of commission depending on who they recommend. I work for a large firm of accountants and every single accountant I have spoken to has a totally different opinion :D

Hi,
I got fixed rate of 3.85% for 2 years with Nationwide about 2 months ago.

Sam