What's your current SVR, please come and compare.........

[weepootle]

I'm really confused about my mortgage .

On my last statement in April, it said my interest rate is 1.49% which is fantastic. However, I've just been looking up mortgages as we're thinking about buying another property and the going rate seems to be around 4.5%.

So how on earth am I only paying 1.5? I have no idea what's going on- am I getting something completely wrong?

Are you on a fixed period short term low rate which will expire/adjust?

No, I started off on a fixed rate - that expired a couple of years ago and I just went onto the SVR. Luckily, as I was about to re-mortgage onto another fixed, the rates started dropping so I just sat still and they just kept dropping.

Maybe it is 1.5% above the base rate?

How long have you had the mortgage?

About 6.5 years. I've been overpaying quite a bit as the monthly payment had got so low.

My annual statement showed my opening balance last year as £89750, interest added was £1507. My rate over that period was initially 1.99%, dropping to 1.49% - giving an average of 1.75% which roughly matches up with the interest I paid.

Does it sound ridiculously low to you earlybird?

Ok, had it worked out on another site- when my last fixed term ended, I went onto a revert rate which is Bank of England base rate + 0.99%. Hope it lasts!

apparently when my fixed rte ends in Nov, we go onto the SVR which is 4.99%! Does that seem ridiculously high..... ?

Well it does to me citybranch lol! From looking around though- your rate does sound pretty average.

The Bank of England base rate is at an all time low so some people like you get very very lucky to be on very low rates - Cheltenham and Gloucester for instance had many contracts like yours. Some banks can't change this due to the way the mortgage terms were written and others can set a higher SVR, especially the more dodgy companies that set up during the bubble and now are more or less bust but are keeping old mortgages going, they partly set these high rates to encourage people away from them so they can wind down business. New mortgages are generally on higher rates because banks have set them in this way since the BOE rate dropped so low.

When you say you are thinking about buying another property do you mean for moving or for "investing", because, if it is for investing, and I'm sorry if this sounds horrible, but if you don't understand why you are on a low interest rate now and how and why banks set different rates you are likely to get yourself in trouble with property investment.

Thank you for all that info, Eurostar - nice too know I've been lucky for once. My mortgage is with A&L just for info.

Your last paragraph made me laugh as you were spot on - I do go into things blind! It would be a 2nd investment property.

Due to dh's work, living in our own home is not an option for the next 10 years or so. Our current property has always been let, but we did buy with the intention of being able to move into it if we had to. Since the arrival of dd's that would never be an option now, however we have long-term tenants and don't really want to sell it to buy a bigger place so thought we'd buy a 2nd property to supplement it.