The 25 year mortgage that I took out last July will be paid off in about 5.5 years.

Blimey (and wahoo).

And yes, I know it’s rubbish for savers, etc etc. But still.

Are variable rate mortages still dropping though? I think a lot of lenders have now put a cap on how far they will drop the rate.

Mine’s still dropping guaranteed to be 0.xx% above base rate for the length of mortgage, so I’m hoping for another drop

Mine (a tracker) is still dropping.

Mine went down with the last drop in rates. £130 a month saved now

My Woolwich offset mortgage is BR+0.49% and they’ve carried on dropping so far; it’s so low that there are Cash ISA’s paying better rates so am putting money into them.

I so fixed at the wrong point 🙁

my woolwich offset is +0.35%

any lower and the’ll be paying ME interest! 🙂

don’t worry, if it falls much lower most people will lose there jobs so you won’t have to worry about paying it.

Stoner – when did you get that rate? Mine was the best I could get 2 years ago.

I think 3 yrs ago. And without casting aspertions it was for a very small facility compared to both our property value and income so there will be a low risk margin in our rate as well as cost of funds.

Base rate tracker +0.24% here, with the co-op, set it up about 14 months ago. They were also offering BR -0.01% at the time, but the arrangement fee was horrendous. Now they’ve stopped doing trackers altogether!

Fixed rate 3 years

approved by our IFA (well a friend who is one)

went through 3 weeks before first rate drop

they are no longer a friend

Well mine was the only rate I could see on their web site at the time so don’t know if they had others available; I was a contractor at the time but the amount borrowed was relatively small compared to the property value. I had an arrangement fee but that wasn’t too bad.

It’s sh1te.

Here’s a great idea, lets make all the people who have been careful with their money and have savings bail out the muppets that have borrowed too much.

Mega inflation just around the corner I reckon and then the whole country goes down the pan.

As always, my mortgagee (Scottish Widows) is slow with any rate reductions, in spite of being part of the Lloyds group – Lloyds (well, C&G) has alreadt dropped its base lending rate by 1% to 3%.

I shall be on the phone (again) to SW later to find out what their game is.

same as me Michael, sucks ass doesn’t it.

More gutting is my Sister works for HBOS and she is on a staff base rate tracker + 0 %, and they still offer staff 100% mortgages, with zero setup fee/transfer/redemption fee’s so she is thinking of buying another house for a few years as an investment.

Fixed rate of 4.99% finshes in May and drops to SVR of 4.79% looking to move within the year so may just keep the mortgage I’ve got so I’m not tied in until things pick up whenever that happens.

Ridethelakes, just cos people don’t have savings doesn’t mean they aren’t careful with money. In fact, quite the opposite. I would think there are a lot of people who don’t have spare money to save and have to be careful with it in order to avoid debt ?

As my brother and sister have rates higher than mine I’ve offered to take some of their debt and put into onto mine – easy as mine’s an offset but I don’t think theirs are flexible enough unfortunately.

I like the way they are stripping the savings away from everyone, just before they crash the economy and put everyone out of work.

Good old Gordon, I am glad he knows what he is doing. Lump of Coal anyone? very tasty with a bit of ditch water marinade.

Here’s a great idea, lets make all the people who have been careful with their money and have savings bail out the muppets that have borrowed too much.

That’s not really the idea as far as I understand it (I’m sure Stoner will correct me). It’s about getting the banks to lend again, specifically to businesses, as it’s the lack of working capital available to businesses that’s causing them to struggle/fold, which in turn is sending the economy down the pan.

Ridethelakes, just cos people don’t have savings doesn’t mean they aren’t careful with money. In fact, quite the opposite. I would think there are a lot of people who don’t have spare money to save and have to be careful with it in order to avoid debt ?

I didn’t criticise the people you mentioned, it’s the people that over borrowed and have effectively caused the whole financial meltdown.

These over-leveraged homeowners together with bankers, Governments, they are all culpable for the mess we are in. Pure greed and the careful people are paying for it.

Here’s a great idea, lets make all the people who have been careful with their money and have savings bail out the muppets that have borrowed too much.

That’s not really the idea as far as I understand it (I’m sure Stoner will correct me). It’s about getting the banks to lend again, specifically to businesses, as it’s the lack of working capital available to businesses that’s causing them to struggle/fold, which in turn is sending the economy down the pan.

It might not be the idea but it is the end result.

As far as I’m aware IHN thats what the interest rate cuts and the expansion of the money supply are for, its to increase lending to business by banks. The fact that your mortage rate/rate on your savings is falling is a side effect. People need to look at the bigger picture here. So your savings rates are cut, this makes you think, ‘might aswell send rather than save’, which in turn helps the economy grow. There are obvioulsy very fine balancing points to the economic system.

As Ive said in another thread the distinction to be made is between lending for liquidity’s sake (necessary for the economy) and lending for leveraging sake (enhancing returns on investments in a rising market).

The bank/govmt’s strategy is to increase the former, without over doing the latter. Most of the public dont discern between the two an come to the vitriolic response as above. The mechanism they are using is reducing the cost of funds to the banks to mean that a higher proportion of their interest earned is “profit” rather than simply pass through cost of funds. “Printing money” is the other method and is supposed to increase the capiacty of the banks to lend, not just the profitability of the banks.

Im not wholly sold on this yet, but then no-one in the world has seen it work in the past 🙂

I would prefer to see 100% loan guarantees for all new business loans instead. And also let some banks fail rather than prop up negative net book values with tomorrow’s tax receipts. Dont buy the line that the taxpayer is going to get their money back – if there was money to be made out of toxic debt, the private sector market would be in their like a shot – and they arent! 🙂

And yes as I’ve said before on here its greed that has caused it and the majority of us have played a part in it. Look at the post above, someone wanting to buy another property now while the prices are cheap and the interest rates are low. Thats just the type of greed that got us into the mess we’re in now. I’m as much to blame as many people but I’m just pointing out the facts.

I am a responsible saver, earning nothing on my savings. I’m not happy!

There are lots of unhappy people in the world, the fact that you are loosing a few quid on your savings during these troubled times isn’t going to win a lot of sympathy.

you are earning nothing on your savings whilst lots of others are losing money hand over foot on their property, forking out huge premiums over base rate for fixed rate borrowings and losing their jobs.

I’d shut up moaning if I were you

Banking used to be really simple. Person A deposited money (Saver). Person B wanted to borrow money. Bank manager would look to pay reasonable sum of interest to depositor, and lend money to borrow and profit on the difference, but only if he knew he would get the money back. The collapse in banking is due to the breakdown in trust. We’re all loosers in this. Liquidity of money which is causing people to loose there jobs won’t improve with lower interest rates as savers like me won’t put in bank accounts.

It’s about getting the banks to lend again, specifically to businesses, as it’s the lack of working capital available to businesses that’s causing them to struggle/fold, which in turn is sending the economy down the pan.

Trouble is, it’s not high interest rates which are preventing banks lending to businesses, so I’m still struggling to see how this whole strategy is likely to work. AFAICS it’s actually the leveragers who benefit first and most from falling interest rates!

lots of others are losing money hand over foot on their property

That’s not real money.

of course it is, We have £25K of deposit in this property. In what way is that not real money. It’s an investment, just as any form of savings is.

The only ‘real’ money is kept in a shoe box under your bed.

Believing that saving money is responsible and borrowing it is irresponsible is ridiculous. What sort of return would you get on savings if there was no borrowing?

Yeah but unless you are planning to cash in on your property and not buy another, the fact that the value has fallen is kind of meaningless. If you are going to sell to buy another house, the house you are buying has probably lost similar value so you haven’t really lost anything.

If my house was worth £100,000 when I bought it, then went up to £130,000, but is now worth £110,000, have I lost £20,000?

The collapse in banking is due to the breakdown in trust. No it’s not it’s due to greed, pure and simple. The breakdown in trust is an effect of that. If you spend more than you have coming in, which is effectively what most banks did, then it was bound to come crashing down at one point.

I’m with you wipeout!

What if your house was worth £100k when you bought it, you worked hard to pay off £20k of capital (like a responsible citizen) and the house is now worth £80k?

Your money’s disappeared. That’s actual money from your salary that’s vanished into thin air. So yes it is a problem.

The collapse in banking btw is due (in my understanding) to the lack of money. Banks just don’t have enough to throw about any more. They lent out lots on fragile assets and as those debts are written off, the money’s gone, never to return. So lack of money is the problem.

Grumm – your statement makes no account of negative equity which will first eat away at your deposit.

if your house was bought more recently, you paid 120 for it, it rose to 130 but is now worth 110, you’re right up shit creak unless your deposit was over 10k