Fixed mortgage ends 2023 support thread

[Echo40]

Just wondering anyone else same boat?

Our fixed 5 year mortgage ends Dec 2023 currently Halifax fixed at 2.44%.

Freinds daughter trying get mortgage currently and she's been offered 6% as rates always above base rate.

Bank of England predict least 2 more rate rises in spring go try and control inflation they say as inflation the enemy.

Looked at recent annual statement.
Worked out what would be left to pay I dec.
Used Martin Lewis mortgage repayment calculator.
Can't extend term due to age.
Want to stay on repayment mortgage.
House definitely worth more than we paid and we put down 22.5% 54k so think we should have least 100k equity so no idea of the loan to value who get us a good rate.
I think we can start shopping around 6months before and think read Lloyd's would honour quote they could give us in July.
I put in worst case interest rate of 7%, as was trying to stress test us and see how much Increase we could be looking at.
Its around £300 per month at 7% as its so far away still no idea I reckon 6% very possible.

But add in Increase in energy and food which continues to rise could be looking at finding a extra £500 per month how is that viable for so many?

Not sure what to do trying not to panic it's beyond my control.
I'm focusing on what is in our control as follows and wondering what everyone else is thinking 🤔 or doing.

We wanted to extend as have 4 kids 3 bed house but scrapped that idea and we moving our bedroom into front lounge as have small lounge at back and divided one bedroom into 2 sides this way 17 year old gets own bigger room.
Son gets small box room and 2 middle girls can share but be divided compromise is much smaller lounge.

Added a 2nd income its minimum wage but every little helps.

Not through choice new boiler as old one condemned hoping long term that save us a little money and placed £2700 on 0% credit as paid 1k cash from savings.

Considering costs and savings of Woodburner in dining room as back of house open plan as worry about energy next winter without any government help at the moment we getting 67 month and cap is £2500. Cap goes up to 3k April and based on current dd we already exceeding 3k a year if stayed same for 12months.
We really need to replace 1 single glazed window and door this summer big expense but offsetting expenditure v energy bills.

Debt we have some credit card debt not because of luxuries just Increase in living costs mostly car related as have very little savings.
Transfered bulk of it to 0% deal think 15 months left on that need to check.
Aim is with credit card 2 which we do pay interest on is clear by summer.
Dont want to go into mortgage with large amounts debt or as they say high levels of gearing.
Credit score fairly good.

Other steps want to achieve before winter is

Save up 1 k emergency fund
Clear overdrafts and use them as emergency not credit card as short term help not live in them every month.

Have a xmas savings fund and buy majority presents early.
Already brought cards and other items cheap in sales.
This should take pressure off in December when I'm stressed about new mortgage.

As above try and find ways save money on energy to help us cope next winter maybe build up a credit over summer months give us a cushion.
Thinking getting air fryer, heated clothes airer and dehumidifier to try save some money on energy.

Stock pile more long life food do tinned / dried things with long life.
No foods like cleaning and bathroom which will help lower grocery bill for 2024 as our increased mortgage payments start xmas.

If we clear debt
Try lower food and energy
Have savings

Hopefully can absord the Increase still a worry hence why forward planning now.

Wondering if very high if even worth moving maybe as well continue with current lender on variable rate.
If we officially in recession will Bank of England start to lower base rates can't see it in 2023.

Anyone else stressing or planning.
Any ideas welcome
Think Martin Lewis keeps warning government this be next big crisis as everything is going up.
Even if inflation goes down energy and food prices won't fall.
Most peoples wages not keeping up with inflation anyways.
Will even effect renters too.
I guess the housing market will drop as house opposite sold 230k during time truss came to power then buyer lost mortgage deal so back on market and now months later sold 290k.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/property/word-warning-millions-homeowners-fixed-25932216?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

uk.news.yahoo.com/million-uk-households-mortgage-crisis-155952811.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANZx-abkLVCD5EFxvgng5NPtX8Qq2XltIoDkkVuowETEvGWU66PWd_TGqRANmEA7ZUHawSNUb5BamGmVaquZnrUjOUSMQoSqvaahvsuV2Zyt20w6XAf0EM-yBWjngmvhje7K5KiagW_Q7tJoXESE-CRkpQDg6kbuIOhC3eqiFpkr

amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/08/mortgage-payers-face-squeeze-in-2023-after-uk-interest-rate-rises

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1719063/bank-of-england-inflation-uk-economy-interest-rates/amp

I’m being offered 4% for a 5 year fix and 4.5% for a two year fix with my current mortgage lender so not as bad as I thought.

This. The SVR for my lender is 7.76% according to the last letter I got. It’s the rate I will have to pay if I don’t take out another mortgage. Generally both the tracker and fixed mortgages have early redemption penalties for the duration of the mortgage so there can be good reason to stay on the SVR such as expecting a huge bonus at work (sadly not in my case) and wanting to put it all into the mortgage or intending to sell and emigrate to Australia (so no chance of porting mortgage to another UK property) but generally, you would want to re-fix at the end of the term.

Commenting to come back xx

Although with a tracker you can make unlimited overpayments and usually they dont have an ERC clause

I changed to a tracker and had £65k left but paid it off in less than 2 years and didnt have to pay ERC.

Took a 5 year fixed this morning, not sure if rates substantially come down.
Life will tell us if we made a mistake.

We have three mortgage accounts with Halifax (same house, released equity for a reno) due to end in Sep 23, Oct 23 and Jul 24. We started a month or so ago with L&C and they have found us a deal with Virgin Money at 3.89% fixed for 5 years. We are rolling them all up in the same deal, so have a small erc to pay but still cheaper over the term than go with Halifax which was over 4.5%.

We are looking at an extra £350 a month

Thanks we are with Halifax.
Issue is ours ends December and base rate could be 5% plus by then.
We can't start shopping around until 6months before so July.
The most we can fix for is 19 years but ideally want to pay off before retirement age.
Husband saying he doesn't want to do 5 year fix at high rate.
They not predicted any falls rates until 2025.

We are still trying to decide whether to go for 2 year fix or 5 year 🤔 both around £100 a month more than we are currently paying. Definitely don't want to go on tracker as that's £250 a month more at the moment although would of course fall if rates come down!

@Echo40 "Husband saying he doesn't want to do 5 year fix at high rate."

No-one knows for sure what rates will be for the next 5 years.

It isn't necessarily the case that today's rates will be considered "high" in 5 years' time, just think about 5 years ago and what they are today.

The point of fixing is more to get certainty than than to get the absolute best rate, because you'll never know until the 5 years is up whether or not it was the cheapest rate, but you will at least know what it is.

All our options are about £300 more than we’re paying currently. 😫 We didn’t realise how good we had it.

We’re cutting it fine with making a choice too but keep postponing in the hope it will be better each time we look.

6 months before December is June isn't it? We are also due to remortgage Dec and I was going to start looking for deals now. How do I begin?

I thought I would start by throwing what little we can at the mortgage to bring it down before begin. Then contact current lender (Natwest), which is hard as I can't work the online system and our branch has just closed. Then contact a mortgage advisor to see what else I can get, or just search online.

Another question please, if anyone can help. Is there any point requesting a new valuation? Our house appears to be undervalued. I wanted to get our LTV under 40% for better deals, so would it be better if pur house were worth more? It is currently showing as 41% LTV in the mortgage statement. Thank you.

Your lender normally contacts you about 6 months before your fixed rate is due to expire, offering you another fixed rate deal or asking if you prefer to switch to mixed variable. So I expect Nationwide will write to you soon. We are with them and they offered us a very competitive deal a couple of years ago without us even having to contact them.

I was wondering this too.

Think weve pretty much decided to go for a 2 year fix and that will cost us just over £100 a month than we are paying now. We might look into over payment, even just £30 a month would cut our term down by a couple of years. But that means finding an extra £130 a month 🙄

I just read the news about energy bills going up too! Thankfully we were overpaying and are hoping to secure around 4.2% over 2 years which would bring it up to the same monthly amount (just no overpayment).
I filled in some online forms to get some ideas yesterday and have been contacted to ask if I want some free advice (£250 fee if we secure through them) so that's my starting point. They said they would talk me through the 40% ltv thing but for all the deals I found online it didn't seem to make much difference.

Our 1.3% rate ends at end of July. Current options are 5 yr fixed at 4.22% or 2 year fixed at 4.7%. Think we are going to go with the 5 yr….

I think it would be surprising if rates ever really drop below 4%, the rates we have had since 2008 have been extremely low.

It'll take so long to get the country solvent, and world issues to end I reckon we have a good 5-8 years of higher rates (although I do believe they will settle and there will be good mortgage deals around, just not as low as they were).

We have gone from 2.83% and our fix ends in July. We have locked in 4.2% and really were undecided on a 5yr or 10yr fix. Went for 10 in the end as we only have 9 years left till we retire and get a large final salary payment which will clear the mortgage.

This way we know what our monthly cost is for the remainder of our working lives.

I can understand that. As it stands we still have 24 years!

OP, I can feel your panic. As you say you can apply for a mortgage 6 months before the old one expires. There is a mortgage comparison website you can look at you have to put in value of house, and how much mortgage you need. It searches and you can select the search eg 2 year fix, 3 year fix, 5 year fix, 2 year tracker, 3 year tracker and 5 year tracker. Just click on what you want. Then it list lots of banks and building societies and the rates they charge. Some have huge booking fees of about £2k but if you keep clicking through eventually some come up without booking fees. You asked about a tracker, they are a figure above the base rate so if base rate was say 5 then a deal might be 6.25 percent.

Just remember the Bank of England are rubbish at predictions. They have got every one of them wrong over the last 18 months so don't trust what they say.

This is a good comparison site to use.

www.comparethemarket.com/mortgages/remortgage/?AFFCLIE=GR57&SRC=GR57&cmpid=PC--GOG--MO--GEN--NJb7t6m1nBbC8Oh&&&gclid=CjwKCAjwpuajBhBpEiwA_ZtfhfMgN9ac0vecylnglUrei_5_KlOUUbD3nIKe1UoSqt-MsZL-05rI2RoC358QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I was wondering about getting valuation too as ours as definitely increased in value due to lots of work done

I spoke to an advisor today. Found out my mortgage expires at the end of the month, not the middle when we moved, so I can't access any deals yet. He said no point trying to lower the ltv if around 40%. The best deals are for 50% and under.