to be seriously seriously fekked off that I signed up for a 5.63% fixed rate mortgage in May 2008?

[bibbitybobbityhat]

I can't bring myself to think about the money we would have saved if I'd gone for a variable or tracker.

How am I to know what interest rates are going to do in the future? I am no kind of soothsayer.

V v v v v annoyed and resentful and bitter.

Not unreasonable to be annoyed, but by fixing your costs at a price you could afford, you made a very sensible financial decision. it is the world that has gone crazy.

I'm in the same position but I'm not fecked off. For me it's worth it for piece of mind. If you look at the last 40 years overall then a 5% interest rate is very good.

Really Viva? But when you think of the money you could have saved over the last 3 or 4 years, don't you want to cry a little bit?

What really fekks me off is the randomness of it all. Here I am, Mrs average person. How am I to know what interest rates are going to do? Every single time I have switched mortgages, it has gone against what interest rates are actually doing (ie. I have had trackers when they have gone way above the fixed rates).

Its like I am being invited to place a bet every time my mortgage comes up for renewal, when I am not in the least bit interested in gambling.

We fixed at 6.9% in 2008

Bibbity - you did do the right thing. I think pretty much any mortgage broker would have expected rates to rise when inflation did. The fact that the BoE acted (and are still acting) in a completely opposite way to 'normal' monetary policy could not be forseen. Don't beat yourself up, please.

And as my DH says, if you can't change something then there is no point in worrying/being sad about it (and yes, i want to punch him sometimes too when he comes out with this and i just want to rant ). However he is actually right.

Same position here.. we remortgaged for a fixed rate at 6.4%..literally a month before it all crashed. Gutting.
However I try to console myself with the thought that IF the rates haven't gone bonkers again when we finish this period we will FEEL better off then because we have been paying so much!

I hate the gamble:(

I think it is wrong for ordinary punters to be invited to gamble on this very important thing.

I agree, i think mortgages should be for the life of the property at capped rates, as i believe they are in France. Hence i fixed for 10 years to try and 'iron out' the gain/loss gambles.

Personally, I don't think it's as much of a gamble as some think. Whilst nobody could have predicted interest rates going as low and for as long, I do think it was predictable in early 2008 that interest rates would fall fairly sharply. I don't have any formal economic training, just my own research and I took out a lifetime tracker in spring 2008 based on what I'd read. I guess you could say that it was just a gamble that paid off, but I don't think the BoE did react in an irrational way based on the economic data at the time.

Our fixed rate deal of 5.2% ends November, Yippeeee! But mortgage company have had the cheek to ask if we want to go on another one straight away, and also, if we do this we would not only be paying more again, but lose out on the possibility of payment "holiday" and, when it ends not go on their basic rate at no more than 2% above bank base rates, but onto a standard variable rate, which they can decide how much above base rate they charge!Oh, but the offer a £200 incentive to try to get you to sign up for it! Do they think we are mad, or stupid or both!!

We fixed in 2007 at 6.4. At the time it was the sensible thing as I like to know how much I need to pay each month.

It was a very good deal at the time (!st year was discounted which let us buy stuff we needed too). It did have a large penalty for coming out before the end of the fixed rate period and I knew that and we went for it as at the time it was the sensible thing.

Last year I bit the bullet and paid the penalty. We got onto a tracker with HSBC; no fees; I panic every month because of the uncertainty but its been the right thing to do. We have saved over £3 600 so far which is more than the fees we paid back and even if rates do go up, we are assured they will go up very slowly and would need to hit 5% before we were back where we were a year ago.

However its a bigger gamble than I have ever taken with our finances and I still feel faint every time I think about one of my old managers telling me how when interest rates hit 10% years back she sat and cried because she couldnt pay her mortgage at that price.

I am not, as you will guess, a risktaker.

Oh and YANBU - but you did enter the contract with the bank Im afraid, if rates had gone up you would have been laughing, bad timing/luck for both of us.

My rule is never fix - the bank always wins. They have much better information than you.

i got a tracker in Feb 2008. Saved an absurd amount of money. I paid (what i thought was a lot of money at the time) for a decent, independent financial advisor. I couldnt recommend it enough, if anyone's in the position of getting a new mortgage/moving house etc. just now.

YANBU, i would be gutted too :(

Ditto. Gutted. Although I'm grateful for our house as we wouldn't be able to afford to buy it now.

Daisy - the BoE didn't act irrationally in 2008. They are now (compared to 'usual' policy which results in increasing interest rates when inflation rises - as it has been for a while)

(that's not a financial advisor at a bank, btw. Or one that won't charge you, they will usually just adevise you to go with whatever bank gives them best commission.)

Oh well good for you DaisySteiner, here is your medal ...

We have an ISA mortgage, tracker thingy.

Panicing ever so slightly I confess.

I'm not trying to sound smug, although I can understand why you'd think that. I'm just trying to point out that if you really believe that it's all one big gamble then it will be, whereas if you do some research then you can be more in control and potentially save a lot of money in the future.

I got my first mortgage in 2008. I took a 3 year tracker 0.34 above base rate. I had a strong inkling rates would fall, and I am not that financially clever to be honest. I spent time researching what I could before making that conclusion.

I have just gone on the SVR now, after 3 years of payments of £92 a month!!! That was interest only.

I don't know what my next step is, but I think it is time to fix soon. The rates can't stay like this, and I'm at a point in life where I want to know what my payments will be long term. Swings and roundabouts isn't it, I've got a lot of mortgage paying years ahead of me, and I'm sure during that time I will end up paying more than 'I have to'.

Life, one big gamble!

We fixed at six point something at the same sort of time as many of you. BUT that rate has now expired and by default we have dropped down to something at a very low figure over base rate that there's no way anyone is offering now. So provided we can stay here without moving [eyes rapidly-growing DD2 speculatively] for a good while we may come out ahead in the long run.

Disagree that BoE is acting irrationally at the moment. Controversially earlier this year, perhaps, but with the economy on the edge of another recession raising interest rates is the last thing that they'll be doing.

Ok Daisy, what research do you suggest I do in May 2013 when my fixed rate comes to an end? I promise I will save what you say and spend a day or two researching it thoroughly when the time comes. Obviously I was a very silly person not to have done my research three years ago.

It pisses me off that you have to have money to get cheap financial products.

We couldn't risk a tracker as we couldn't afford to pay a penny more.

Banks make their money out of the poorest by charging them higher interest on everything.

Daisy, you still sound smug

Whether you mean to, or not