Go on STW – shatter my happiness:

We’ve just signed for 64 months fixed at 2.49% for a 70% LTV mortgage.
Portable and no charge on overpayments up to 10% of outstanding.

Decent enough deal?

sounds alright, depends on your circumstances etc.
interest rates aint going nowhere fast, so should be fine.
i’m on a tracker at 2% which i’m more than happy with, took out in sept 2009, and i dont plan to fix anytime soon.

ps. have a look on moneysaving expert or a comparison site like that, thats the only way to see if you got a good deal, as the next poster may only have 1.5% fix but that wont be avaialble at the current time, so is irrelevent.

Yeah we weren’t sure about going fixed, but decided we wanted the stability for a bit as we’ve got young kids.

Seemed a decent enough rate from what we could find on MSE and the like, given our additional requirements of portability and overpayment.

But I’m sure someone will come along with a 1% fixed for a decade or something 🙂

Nothing wrong with that, there may be marginally better deals around but nothing to lose any sleep over. Even with RPI currently at 1.6% (historically quite low low) it’s almost free money in real terms.

As soon as you fix stop thinking about it, stop checking rates, stop opening mortgage threads. There’s nothing you can do. You’ve found a deal that works for you and it isn’t going to change.

That^

But I’m sure someone will come along with a 1% fixed for a decade or something

I’ve had <1% for most of the last decade. More through luck than any financial savy.

OP – similar to what we are on. We figured it was a decent enough situation for where we are, and are planning to go.

Good to hear and probably wise advice there nickjb. 🙂

Either way we were coming off a Standard Variable Rate of 4.99% so it’s a massive improvement for us – means about £200 less a month in mortgage payments (which we can use to increase our overpayments).

We are in the process of changing to a lifetime discount of 3.69 off SVR, so currently 1.95%. No early penalties.

Currently in dispute with the sub-subcontracted surveyor, who, without even doing a proper “drive by” valued our house £50k less than we payed for it 6 years ago, and £180k less than the valuation we had 3 months ago. The head underwriter agrees with us and its escalated to a head office argument. We don’t need it valued at the actual value to meet their LTV criteria, just what we paid 6 years ago. The local market has moved @30% in that period.

Who with?

Laziness on my behalf means I’ve been too much for far too long.

Yep, valuation is a concern for us too dants. We’re only signed in principle pending the valuation – mortgage advisor’s advice was to make sure the details were accurate on Zoopla and the like and aim high.

We spent long enough in negative equity, overpaying all we could to get us down to this LTV so I hope it sticks.

Who with?

Ours will be a NatWest mortgage, though our current lender Barclays had a very similar deal at a slightly higher rate but without fees etc so it was a toss up between the two. In the end the slightly longer fixed term won.

Relevant to you Drac, we used the North East Mortage Centre as our advisors and so far have found them to be very helpful.

Cheers for that.

Drac if you are with a half decent provided right now then they probably have a better deal for you available but they are waiting for you to ask for it.

I just switched before the end of a fixed period to a % less than before with no fee, they essentially want to keep your business but are a bit lazy about drawing you into a new deal.

Santander allowed an online check, made the offer in principle, I signed up and I was on it a within a couple of weeks. Well worth the effort for the £60ish quid a month it will save me.

Drac if you are with a half decent provided right now then they probably have a better deal for you available but they are waiting for you to ask for it.

I’ve had a quick look in the past and just before, they can’t come close to me switching.

Hinkley & Rugby BS. Up to 80% LTV on that deal.

A bit nervous about discounts on SVR can’t they just up the rate to whatever? They don’t have to track base rate do they?

I’m looking at the moment best 5 year rate seems to be leek bs

The SVR for a BS will be what everything works on – fixes, discounts, loans, savings, will all be a function of SVR, she they aren’t gong to manipulate it just to screw discount mortgage customers. It will tend to fluctuate with the base rate. Also, the fact there are no early repayment penalties means you are free to switch if you want.

I’ve just got a fixed for 3 yrs at 1.69% 50% ltv, portable and same with no over payment chargers over 10% also absolutely ZERO fees to set up

Ah there it is. Took longer than I thought 😀
That’s a pretty impressive rate for a fixed. Who was that with?

To be fair though, I suspect 50% LTV gives you access to a lot more options than our (optimistic) 70%. And we wanted to fix for quite a lot longer.

What a palaver!!! Our house is a conversion of 2 cottages into 1. Every response from the surveyor (called it a mid terrace, when it’s 2/3rds of a 3 house terrace) suggests they’ve only valued half our property, but won’t budge unless we pay them £500 for a new survey. My missus (a lawyer) has decided to pull out & make a formal complaint to the ombudsman instead!

We are now going through a broker with Nationwide. 2 year tracker at 1.5% with no tie in, and the option to change at any time onto another of their products for £75 fee. Current plan is to run 18-24 months on the tracker then swap to a 5 year fixed, currently 2.49%.

After our valuation debacle above, we were a bit twitchy. Nationwide called today – they accept our valuation without even a drive by!!

I got a 2 year fix at 1.69 with 75% ltv. Halifax it was. Might only be for existing customers, but got it via the London & Country broker.

2 year was deliberate as we’re having building work done, so the value will alter afterwards. That’ll mean when it ends I can remortgage again on a longer fix with a better ltv.

Santander allowed an online check, made the offer in principle, I signed up and I was on it a within a couple of weeks. Well worth the effort for the £60ish quid a month it will save me.

we too are with santander on a deal that will end 2018 sometime and also early exit penalties. is there a chance if i ring them then that theyd offer me a better deal and waive the penalties? or do i just suck it up for another couple of years?

I signed up for a 1.74% fixed for 2 years. LTV is a whopping 51% as I called up for a valuation prior to the new agreement. It’s with NatWest and I paid £995 up front for the lower rate.

We’ve got a 2 bedroom house, with 2 year old twins… so am fully expecting to be needing a new house when this deal is up, although it is portable so depending on our situation we could move before that.

Back to your original q Graham, for a 5 yr fixed I don’t think that’s bad at all.

So, how do you go about getting a revaluation?

Since we moved in we rebuild the back “extension” into a proper kitchen, we’re about to knock through between the old kitchen and living room (so near enough the whole of downstairs) and the garden is a f’n wreck but will be sorted. Do they care about actual finish at the time or do they take into account the fact that you live there and it’s not going to be a showhome?

2.38% on 5 year fixed with Nationwide. Fair bit of overpayment latitude, not that I ever have anything to overpay with. No fee. LTV is about 30% though I’m not sure it makes any odds past 70%.

Though we came from a 5 year fixed @ 5.98% 😯
Couple of years on their BMR (2.5%, base plus2) with complete freedom, and they continually hassled us to fix .. once it dropped we did.

I think the difference was only in the £20 ish a month region from 2.5 anyway.

From 5.98 it was around 300!

we too are with santander on a deal that will end 2018 sometime and also early exit penalties. is there a chance if i ring them then that theyd offer me a better deal and waive the penalties? or do i just suck it up for another couple of years?

In my experience, no – tried twice (no harm in trying!) .. but as you’re effectively saying you’re leaving them if they don’t (or sucking it up) you have no leverage :-/

So, how do you go about getting a revaluation?

We just got ours as part of the remortgage process – all handled by the bank and broker.

Our revaluation was a complete joke though.

No visit to the house, not even a drive by. No idea where the guy got his figures from because he valued our house at 40k more than next door recently sold for!

More than a little odd given that they are identical terraced houses and next door spent a full year doing 30k worth of really nice remodelling and redecorating, before they sold it for 10k less than we bought ours for nine years ago. 😯

The annoying thing is that if we had known the valuation would be so “optimistic” we could have gone for a much lower LTV or switched much earlier.

So, how do you go about getting a revaluation?

When we looked into it Natwest offered 3 levels. On the spot based on what we paid and how long we owned it which gave a few percent increase (well below real market rises), a drive by where it is valued from the street for a small fee (well not that small for sitting in a car) and a full valuation for a large fee. The on the spot was enough for us to move to the bottom band so we went with that. To allow for an modernisation and improvement work I expect you’d need a full valuation that involves actually looking at the house.

In my experience, no – tried twice (no harm in trying!) .. but as you’re effectively saying you’re leaving them if they don’t (or sucking it up) you have no leverage :-/

youre right, altho im not effectively telling them im leaving, i would have been ready to sign up longer term if necessary?
just rang them and apparently id have a £3000 early repayment fee to pay which wouldnt be waived. theres nowt on the market that will save me more than that so may as well just hang in there til end of term oct 2018.

thanks

A lot of big lenders have started using Automated Mortgage Valuation software for straightforward remortgages – basically a commercial version of Zoopla.

Nationwide have just done this with us, accepting our valuation of £510k, whereas the useless drive by surveyor valued at £375k, saying that the AMV software came out at 340k 😯 , just proving that he really did only value half our house.

So, we have had:

Surveyors disputed AMV : 340K
Disputed drive by : 375k
Purchase price 2010: 425k
Nationwide AMV: 510k
Estate agent valuation: 500-535k
Zoopla: 630k

£510k is about right IMHO with local knowledge and a keen interest in the local market.

One of the features I like about the Nationwide mortgage, is that they will offer rates to existing customers switching, price matched against a named list of High Street big hitters, including HSBC, who give great rates, but are very strict on affordability and always value low.

I called up and they valued it over the phone using the national average. According to them we’ve made £65k in 4 years on a new build. Our neighbours just sold their identical house for the same value, so pretty accurate in this case.

When we looked into it Natwest offered 3 levels. On the spot based on what we paid and how long we owned it which gave a few percent increase (well below real market rises), a drive by where it is valued from the street for a small fee (well not that small for sitting in a car) and a full valuation for a large fee. The on the spot was enough for us to move to the bottom band so we went with that. To allow for an modernisation and improvement work I expect you’d need a full valuation that involves actually looking at the house.

Be interesting to see what happens to ours next year.

We took out a 2yr fixed when we bought it last summer, on the assumption that as we were buying a (cosmetic) wreck we could only add value. So hopefully by the time we’ve finished we’ll have done enough work to bump it up a LTV band without having actually paid off anywhere near that much, that and monopoly money SE house price inflation.

Lots of good discussion here so here’s a question.. Truly how portable is a portable mortgage? Some specifics, we are looking to move within the next year however our existing deal has just ended. Previously we were on a poor 5 year fixed @4.5% with an LTV ~50%. This has now reverted to SVR which is ~4.8% so obviously want to drop that to something much more competitive however want to be able to port it and possible increase the amount by £100k. Is the best bet going via a broker (London and Country) and seeing what they can offer? Cheers

Definitely speak to a broker. Even if they charge you a small fee (when you sign mortgage, not upfront) its worth it for good advice.

A broker’s probably worthwhile if you need anything other than bog standard mortgage.

Although all they do is put your criteria into a fairly pro looking version of money supermarket. But is easier than hiking up and down the highstreet asking questions and filling forms.

TBH he wasn’t worth the money for us. We could have probably got a similar deal via our banks. But by that point in the process it was just funny-money and £1 a month added to the mortgage for all eternity was less hassle than saying no when the EA offered his services.

You also get their experience of different lenders risk strategies, affordability tests etc. Plus they do all the legwork.

Cheers guys. Got a with London and Country on Friday. Cheers.