To ask when interest rates will likely go down?

[AnxietyLevelMax]

We are close to remortgaging for the first time. Long long time ago i was happy and excited thinking we will be paying less by £200 min per month. Right now our rate would change. We still have 5 more months before we can remortgage so we can end up paying even more than now.

how long do u think it will all last?

i dont know how we are going to do that, we cant save anything now because we are paying debts, childcare is expensive as hell, everything is expensive, we barely make it month to month paying debts off but it will still take us 1.5-2 yrs min. We have no financial cushion. I am worried as hell, cant sleep worrying if something happens we dont have any extra money.

So you've got £350k sitting in cash? That seems.... unwise. It will be worth £315k in a year's time.

I’d fix now. We have just done this - remortgage due 1 October so arranged mortgage last month that will start then. 2.1% rather than 1.9% we were on.

They have been so low for many years

I brought in 1999 and had a capped rate. They don’t exist any more. Haven’t for years - think was about 6%

towards the end of 2010 I was paying 3% and we fixed it at that. Yes they went down but I was scared they would go up

so brought out of existing mortgage and added penalty to mortgage

prefer to know what paying for 5yrs rather then worry

can you do that @AnxietyLevelMax if worried will go sky high

i do think over the next few years wil go back to 5/6%

As previously and repeatedly stated couldn’t give a flying fuck what their opinion is because an opinion just like an arsehole is something that we all have but very few should be on public display.

I've got a fixed rate of 1.98% coming to an end next July. I'm seriously thinking of paying the ERC and locking in a ten year fixed rate at 2.82% This is because mortgage rates could be 4-5% by the time I come to remortgage and there's the possibility they could go higher over the next ten years and we might never see this low base rate again.

My thinking is that even if my gamble doesn't pay off and interest rates drop again any sub-3% mortgage rate is still a fantastic deal. If your mortgage rate is lower than inflation then your debt is just getting inflated away.

BofE has signalled that they're going to be more aggressive with rate rises soon. USA raised theirs 0.75% last week. 3 of the people voting on the BofE rate rise wanted to go for 0.5% this time. I think the next hike will be at least 0.5% then it will be 0.5% each time for a while.

It IS a guess though, and a massive gamble, because we could go into a massive depression (never mind recession) and we could see rates of 0.1% again. I believe some countries actually have negative interest rates?!

What are people's thoughts?! Stupid to consider paying a few grand to lock in a ten year fix when I've got a year to go on this low rate?

I suspect that they will increase by another 1% at least in the coming 2 years and probably up even higher if things don't slow down.

This is going to be a VERY bumpy road for all of us. At the same time time £200+ min a month is peanuts compared to re-payments in our area (£1000+ a month as an average monthly re-payment).

I would seriously start looking at how you can maximise your income now - don't wait. Get a part time job somewhere and bank the cash as a fall back. That way, when it happens you won't be left short and still feel less pressured than waiting til it hits.

Its anxiety provoking all round. Good luck, you can weather this.

@rainingsnoring and @IcecreamForAlcohol
no quite the opposite he was talking me out of buying another product, i’ve come into a surplus of cash due to a pay rise and was looking at clearing a chunk off my mortgage and we were weighing up the advantages of sucking up the early redemption penalty versus just leaving everything as it is and sticking the money in an ISA.

it just makes me laugh when people are coming out with oh they’ve exhausted all options to prop up the market and then they come up with something else and people don’t like it and they huff n puff but still these ideas keep coming, each one apparently are going to be the straw that broke the camel‘s back and it just never is, because let’s look at situation that the UK and the US and Australia what else do we actually do other than sell each other services and money?

That was literally what I discussed today with my mortgage advisor I think it depends on what your redemption penalty is, Santander contacted me last year six months before the fixed rate ended so if you were gonna hold your nerve if you might only have to wait another six months to see what’s happening.

@Nothappyatwork

House prices are dropping in Australia.

Okay well I’ll you know revise my position when I’m presented with data as it confirms the above.

what are they dropping from I mean that’s the question like the house I currently live in you could’ve bought it in 2019 for about 25% less so if they drop 20% that’s still a 5% increase over three years which is what you’d expect isn’t it ?
and they’re not gonna drop 20% let’s be honest I never do.

I doubt your mortgage broker is qualified to advise about things like finance and likely interest rates but I hope you have made the best decision.

Unfortunately, I don't think many people will be laughing about the economic situation later in the year. You seem to think the government and bankers are some kind of knights in shining in armour when the reality is jolly different. As I have already said, they will do everything the can to save the banking system and prop up house prices but if inflation continues to climb (as expected) and sterling tanks (as looks likely), they won't be able to continue with QE or low interest rates. Do you seriously think they will be paying people's mortgages in that situation?

and they’re not gonna drop 20% let’s be honest I never do.

I bought my flat in outer West London suburbs in 1988 for £65k. Sold it in in 1995 for £38.5k. (And yes, for a while my mortgage rate was 17.5%).

Not making a prediction, just saying shit can happen...

I had this idea last month when the rate for the ten year fix was 2.34%

I actually had an appointment with my bank's mortgage advisor and his attitude was "oh, it will cost you this much to switch to this so obviously you won't want to do this"...If I could go back in time I definitely would have, because 2.34% is a great rate and I'd just suck any risks up but now my calculations are a bit more iffy.

I realise now he's not an economist so what does he know, and why did I listen to him when I'd done my sums. Even economists don't know what's going to happen. His attitude was weird actually because the bank would surely prefer me to pay them loads of money to come out of my fix early.

They have paid people‘s mortgage is under those circumstances historically yes.

We can remortgage in September earliest. Already spoke to our broker. Dont know if we can do it earlier if we would like to pay the penalty and it doesnt matter as we have £500 savings on the side and both paychecks cover month to month and little bit of debt and nothing is left.
as mentioned before - we cannot consolidate the debts etc as besides one credit card we have debt with our families, who are understanding and patient but we still have to pay it off asap.

fyi - i cannot take additional job. Have a part time job and ds goes to a childminder then. Husband has a full time job. takes him over an hour one way to get there or come back, 12 hrs shift. rota based so each week is different so i cant plan he will stay weekends with ds while i am at work. We have no family in uk.

we have stopped our pension contributions for now, will be cancelling life insurance as it is £40 per month, going as low as possible with phone contracts soon, cancelling tv soon, we can use freeview and just need internet to watch something occasionally anyway. I try to cut corners as much as possible but it feels like we cannot make any step forward because there is something which will come up and hit us.

i am leaning more and more towards 10 yrs fixed but will see.

@AnxietyLevelMax if you ignore every other piece of advice on this thread please do not cancel your life insurance. I know of a gentleman who lost his wife to breast cancer and literally went from being a CTO with an extremely healthy income to not being able to work for a year managing his grief stricken children and quietly falling apart himself. The life insurance allowed him to spend the last three months of her life at her bedside and allowed him to recover.

This, most definately !.

If I were you I would reinstate life insurance contributions. I would think of that as an essential cost as long as you still have enough to eat, heat and clothe yourselves.

Not talking about anyone elses situation, but I am working as much overtime as possible and have asked (and got!) pay rises to hedge against the coming shit storm

@AnxietyLevelMax please don’t cancel life insurance

we will all die one day. Just some sooner than others

regulars know that my dh died 11yrs ago. After a few months life in finally paid out

thank god.

I joined way. Widowed and young. So many cancelled their li or didn’t have any

when the person you love most in the world die and your whole world collapsed - the last thing you want is to worry about losing your home.

Having to sell it. Maybe having to rent as only thing you can afford on one income

so many on way this happened to

£40 a month will be the best investment if god forbid you or your husband die

www.gfk.com/en-gb/press/uk-consumer-confidence-down-two-points-to-lowest-ever-score-of-40

Consumer confidence the lowest it's been for 40 years.

Which is mental given that we have full employment and that looks to remain the case until 2025, that’s from the office of national statistics.

'full employment' in shit jobs that barely pay the bills! Why are so many people working in jobs that have to be topped up by universal credit while the CEOs of those companies are paid millions in salary and bonus?

www.mirror.co.uk/money/sainsburys-boss-sees-pay-triple-27167077

www.mirror.co.uk/money/supermarket-bosses-earn-shop-floor-26400322

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10813371/Every-little-helps-Tesco-chief-executive-paid-4-7million-year.html

They must feel great that they're getting paid this much while their minions (who the stores wouldn't be able to run without) can't even pay their rent.

Tbh I'm not even mad at Tesco: at least they pay teenagers the same as older workers and actually pay more than minimum wage.

an opinion just like an arsehole is something that we all have but very few should be on public display.

And yet you keep posting?

Therefore your opinion is more valid than the richest man on the planet, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (I thought you liked investment bankers? Maybe just not this one as his opinions don't align with yours?) and former US Treasury Secretary.

"The Lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Is it dawning on you that you're at the bottom of a pyramid selling scheme?

@Nothappyatwork