Everyone seems a bit cheerful and animated, so let’s have something dry..

Usual ‘she’s gonna blow!’ headlines over the weekend have finally spurred me to check out what’s going on .. been sat on Nationwide’s BMR which hasn’t exactly spurred me into action. However it appears I can get slightly better on a 5 year fix with no fee (2.34 v 2.5) or slightly worse on a 10 year (3.04) – both seem to be cheaper than paying a fee overall which I can’t quite figure out.

Any better deals out there? 5/10 years a bad idea? I can’t help thinking 10 more or less sees me out of the mortgage and is affordable, but maybe the rates aren’t going to rise any time soon after all.

Depends how much you can afford and whether you really think the interest rates are going to soar.

If you’re >50% into your mortgage I would guess it’s not a massive problem if the interest rate increases but it might be problematic if it properly shoots up.

3.04% for the duration would give peace of mind and could potentially save you a lot, but could cost you a little bit too – whose to say we aren’t actually going to end up with a long period of zero inflation/deflation?

I don’t see them soaring. But I’ve a good track record of being wrong 🙂

Well rates ain’t going to plummet so if you’re fairly certain you won’t be moving then I’d be tempted with a longer term fixed rate.

I chose to do variable recently, its been cheaper for a long period to stay variable and realistically if they go up much so many people would be handing their keys back the whole thing will go bang anyway, so I think no matter what they will try to keep it low……….far better for ‘them’ that we all get cheap credit than a few get expensive credit

that being said, it depends on size of mortgage and offered rates, fixed was 2.19 and variable was 1.9 for me and it was a big mortgage

so many people would be handing their keys back the whole thing will go bang anyway

That’s been behind my thinking. When I started this we were at 5.98% and we managed so I think I might go for the cheaper 5 year deal and not think about it till then.

Co-op doing 1.39% fixed for two years at the moment. We have just had ours agreed in principle so hoping it goes through without any hitches and rates start to creep up…

I can’t see interest rates going up by more than a token amount in the next few years. There is far too much default just sitting there waiting to happen even with a pretty modest rise.

However, I’d probably take a five-year fix, particularly if you end up paying less monthly. There are plenty of online mortgage rate comparison sites, so chances are you’ll find something even better.

Can you pay a bit more and try to clear it in a seven year fixed?

I can’t remember the numbers right now but when I re-mortgaged last year I considered fixing in and did a cost comparison on the monthly cost of a 0.5% rate increase vs. the monthly cost of the best fixed rate deal around at that time. It was something like £30 per month more for a 0.5% rate increase with the variable rate option, but £125 per month more on the cheapest fixed rate option at that time – so the rates would have to rocket up at least 2% before the variable rate lost out. I might be making huge assumption here but I really don’t think interest rates can afford to be increased a large amount – 0.5% at the most. The economic recovery is still too fragile, the world economy even more fragile and too many people need weening off free money.

We’ve just fixed. Hopeing that any increace in rates wgen it ends in 2 years will be offset against both us adding some value decorating it and any rise in the market bumping us up another loan to value bracket.

We just fixed for 5 years. Cheaper than what we were on and keeps me unstressed.

Rates are only going to go one way, I personally, would fix it now for as long as possible, people will tell you you’re mad (banks especially) and it’ll cost you £x a month more – but whilst rate might only rise slowly and stay low-ish the BOE are aiming for the ‘new normal’ of 3% – if you can fix it at 3% it sounds like a safe bet to me..