Has your mortgage gone up?

[AllanyonetalksaboutisHandM]

I’m abroad, ours went up by around €50 last month, just received an email and January’s mortgage payment is almost €200 higher 😔can’t afford all this, with electricity and petrol too, how long is this due to continue?

Our fixed rate ends in June and we're looking at paying an extra £200 a month at least.

I was listening to a financial expert on the radio this morning and he said we won't see low interest rates for at least another 5 years so I think we're in this for the long haul.

We did well out of a tracker mortgage for a good few years, but we went for a fixed about 3 months ago, so we got an ok rate.

So yes it was more for a month but its now less than if we were still on a tracker as we secured a rate lower than what it would now cost on a tracker, if that makes sense.

So the thing is, sadly, you are just paying more interest, it doesnt come off the debt.
Also, looking at fixed rates now will be at about 5.5% upwards as they are predicting that thats the way the market will go. I think the quicker you speak to someone professional about it and get some proper advice on whats avaliable the better.

Our fix ends in May. We have locked in a new fixed deal (that you can do 6 months in advance). On paper it looks as though it's increasing by an extra £250 a month. However, we also got out a large(ish) loan two years ago for home renovations. We currently repay £201 back on the loan. We've added the loan amount to the mortgage, so our monthly outgoing is only an extra £49. I was expecting a lot worse, so I'm happy with that.
We've been TTC for two years now, and so if a baby doesn't arrive, we'll probably downsize in a few years; in the meantime, we intend to overpay each month, while we're still childfree and able to.

Sadly my fix ended in November and cheapest desk I could get is £240 more

Deal not desk!!

So is my best bet to try for a fixed rate? Are they usually fairly low? Can they just give it to you straightaway, what is it based on?

It's all a gamble OP. You could fix and then interest rates drop, or they could rise much more. No-one knows. You need to assess the risks, make a choice and hope for the best (while planning for the worst case scenario if you've any sense).

I can only tell you about UK mortgages but the answer is no, they're not low, thry're usually higher than trackers because you pay for the certainty. A lot of people are doing trackers and waiting it out because the fixed rates are on their way slowly down (but are unlikely to go back to 1/2% again).

Is it looking like it will go higher and higher though?

Do you need to qualify in any way for a fixed or can you just request and they put you on a fixed rate?

You need to speak to some adviser there not to (surprisingly nice 😁)randoms on internet who mostly will not know rules for portugal most likely.

Just look at your mortgage provider website. They usually have f&q and available rates and products. Then speak to adviser

I have a tracker and it will have gone up 150pm from Jan compared to this Jan just gone. I spoke to the bank who advised me not to fix as my rate is lower than the fixed and they think the interest rates will drop. That said it is a bank that is pulling out of the country I live in so maybe they are talking out of their arses to get people off the phone.

No one can predict for sure but the Bank of England said this week interest rates were likely to go up here in 2023 and as Europe seems to be following the same pattern, it may happen in Portugal too. But how much more who knows. If you fix for five years and suddenly by the end of 2023 interest rates start coming down again, you're going to be stuck with a high monthly payment while it would've dropped if you'd stayed on a tracker. You really should speak to a mortgage advisor.

So will you answer whether it’s a U.K. mortgage lender or not?
It sounds like you need a link to a basic mortgage guide, but there’s no point sharing one with you if it’s not a U.K. mortgage!

@Testina Sorry, I said I’m in Portugal, it’s with Santander

Isn’t a U.K. mortgage

Ah sorry, you did reply to me! I scrolled through your posts and missed the important one 🤣

You need to know the mortgage market for Portugal then.

Yes. £300 a month. My bills have gone up by over £500 a month. Bonkers. Next year will be a nightmare for those with fixed rates maturing.

@Freezingfreda Thats insane 😫how are people managing 🤷🏻‍♀️

How are people managing? Well, some had enough spare for wriggle room, some have increased work hours, some have remortgaged for longer terms or fixed.

Some are selling and downsizing or renting, some are sticking their heads in the sand and hoping it'll all just fix itself.

You have options too.

In the UK the economy is expected to get worse so mortgages will go up.

Ours is fixed for another 4 yrs. My parents talked a lot about the time interest and mortgage rates were 12.5% which sounds terrifying.

OK, so in Portugal mortgages are usually based on the Euribor (a rate that’s a weighted average of the top European lending banks) and there are 5 different Euribor rates I think (3 month rate, 6 month rate…) You see that in mortgage products as “3M” “6M”.

So you’ll pay based on the Euribor for your product, plus agreed additional %. In the U.K. when we talk “x% above base rate” we mean the base rate set by the Bank of England. You’re based on the Euribor which is a European measure, and influenced across multiple countries. So for opinions on whether that will rise you need different sources than U.K. sites.

I’m sure it will rise, but it’s influenced by more economies working together and multiple governments - so not the same influences as U.K.

You can get fixes in Portugal.
Start with reading the mortgage guide on Santander website for Portugal.

@Testina Thanks so much, yes it’s Euribor, I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know much about mortgages etc, it just seems to be a substantial rise in a small amount of time. I will go to the bank next week, lovely thing to do days before Christmas 😔

Definitely going up - this is today’s ECB press release for the rise you’ve just seen, and it openly says their opinion is they’ll have to rise more.

Talk to your bank about fixing options. The risk is that the rate falls, but honestly it’s not falling in the next 12 months in my opinion, and not significantly falling for 24 months, if it falls at all. So personally I think there’s almost no risk in fixing for 2 years: BofE or Euribor!

Yes mine has gone up a lot but it's a tracker so I've been benefiting from low rates for a long time - it's still cheaper than any fix available - I have never found a cheaper deal on offer anywhere.