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.

I would love to see a link to the ONS data about full employment in 2025. Can you post it please?
The above statistic about consumer confidence is not 'mental'. It's very understandable under the circumstances.

@AnxietyLevelMax - I agree about the life insurance. You never know if you will be the one unfortunate enough to lose your partner at a young age when you still have responsibility for children and a mortgage.

The stats are on ONS site for all the see, additionally S&P jobs PMI via HSBC
Redundancy rates as of June are down, 51,000 less per quarter vs Jan/Feb 2020
Shrinking workforce in the UK 522,000 less people in the workplace vs 2020

Thanks @Nothappyatwork but it would be great if you could provide a link to what you said about 2025 figures because I can't find any data about that.

Although unemployment is currently low, you have to bear in mind that a very large number have left the workplace and so less are actually employed overall. Also, you need to look at the jobs that people are doing. A significant proportion are very poorly paid (requiring state top ups) and insecure (zero hour contracts) which doesn't compare with the jobs of previous decades. If a recession occurs (seems pretty certain to me), the employment figures, even with above caveats, will worsen significantly.

If you wanted to go down a rabbit hole of comparing and contrasting equivalent rates of pay equivalent, contract conditions etc that’s way above my pay grade. I believe that requires specialist HR software which I don’t have access to, i’m also on my phone so I’m not able to link the office of national statistics exact slides on their PowerPoint but if you go on the site you will be able to find them, i’ve literally given you the search criteria.

Sold my house late last year My mortgage was £440 per month
I was paying £3000+ per month at the height of the high interest rates on a mortgage that was 1/3 of my last years mortgage amount

I would argue that whilst the excruciatingly high interests rates didn’t last for long it took from about 1988-1992 for the interest rate to fall back to single digits

Probably going to rise to 5-7% over the next 5 years. Start to reduce 15 years from now.

UK interest rates are not set by the government.

I'm not asking you to provide reports on employment conditions but stating facts about the current jobs market.

If you can add a link this evening when you have finished work that would be great as I can't find any 2025 employment forecasts.

@Blondeshavemorefun they won't go that high. The government has a huge amount of debt to service, they are going to put up interest rates and increase their own debt. They'll threaten it but it won't happen. And yes I know it's the BoE who set rates but they are in the pocket of the government.

I think they will over time

hopefully will never be back to 15%

but can definitely see going back to 5/6% in say 5-10yrs

I think we run the risk of very high inflation, so that the government can inflate their debt away.

However, they aren't in control of other economies, such as the US and China. So there maybe an event that forced their hand to raise interest rates sharply and suddenly.

@Blondeshavemorefun interest rates will not go that high, unless there is a campaign of quantative tapering. As @IcecreamForAlcohol stated they are just hoping to deflate the debt away which is why now is a great time to leverage and not hold cash. Houses haven't increased in 'value' (when compared to the ultimate hedge of gold) it's more than money is worth less.

wolfstreet.com/2022/06/21/housing-bubble-woes-supply-jumps-sales-drop-bottom-falls-out-below-500000-amid-holy-moly-mortgage-rates-median-price-skewed-higher-by-shift-in-mix/

California has had mega house price inflation. This just could just be a blip or it could be the start of a trend.

I found some advisors at loan-broker.uk and one of their advisors helped me find a deal which helped me refinance my existing debt with a lower interest rate. If not, you should really speak to a professional advisor from the Citizen's Advice Bureau. Good luck.

pmi.org/learning/careers/job-growth
22 million jobs or 33% worldwide increase through to 2027
there are literally hundreds of links so no I cannot pull them all up by one by one however they are on ONS website so go Google

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/863506/working_futures_main_report.pdf
Now naturally The report reflects the opinions expressed in the report that are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the department, the projection should be regarded as indicative of likely developments for the economic and labour market.

but one would assume that they do indeed have access to the predictive software, that would compare and contrast the medium and long-term trends for the UK economic and labour market and they are indeed to be regarded as a robust benchmark for debate and used in conjunction with a variety of other sources of labour market information.

So despite the blips of Covid the labour market is strong overall.

@Nothappyatwork - thanks but neither of those links is from the ONS and neither predicts 'full employment until 2025'

The first link is from "The Project Management Institute' predicting good growth in jobs for project managers.
The second link doesn't work.

The ONS is the Office for National Statistics. It collects statistics and doesn't provide economic forecasts so I was pretty sceptical about your claim and clearly you can't back it up at all. For whatever reason, you seem to think that the economic outlook is rosy and, even if it isn't, it won't be a concern for anyone. Okay, you are entitled to your opinion. However, you really shouldn't invent data and make totally false assertions.

We've just locked in a 5 year deal at 2.74%. DH thinks we should have gone for 3 year deal. Any words of wisdom or reassurance we've probably done the right thing??

I would've gone for the 5 year too.

We’ve just gone for 5 years too. If 3 years then I think we’d face very high rates or pay a fortune to remortgage after. We are planning to overpay as much as a possible over 5 years so that when we get to the end of it it’s less of an issue. Is that an option for you?

Also the 3 year rates aren't a lot better than the 5 year rates at the mo, are they? When I looked there seemed to be virtually no difference.

I'd have gone for a ten!

@Frazzled2207 yes I was thinking we could try and overpay each month if childcare costs don't bankrupt us from Jan when I go back to work. Atm our budget from Jan would mean we have £160 to put in savings every month, so potentially we should pay that into mortgage instead? I just get very nervous not building up a rainy day fund, which will be considerably reduced come Jan as it's currently subsidising my mat leave pay (or lack thereof)

In your case I think I would save and then do a lump sum every year or so depending on what you feel comfortable doing at the time.