Is anyone remortgage savvy?

[mollysmum82]

We're coming to the end of our 5 year fixed rate mortgage and we are paying £1200 a month (capital and repayment). We bought the house for £170,000 and we've got about £155000 left on it now. Are we paying too much do you think? I've never remortgaged before so I wondered if anyone had any tips or recommendations on lenders? Thanks so much for any help!

Try London and Country - very good

Try London and Country - very good

You are paying way too much, I know people with a similar loan who are paying half that.

Oh dear, psoted twice sorry!

Would agree you do seem to be paying alot

We have that amount left on our CP mortage and its less than £900 p/m.

HSBS have some good deal atm but they dont deal with brokers. Also applies to YBS.

Google mortgage calculator, tap in your info and they should come up with some current products, I think you could get that down by a few hundred pounds. Watch out for arrangement fees though...that could scupper any savings.

Has your current lender sent you any details of their new products? Shop around, it's definitely worth it

We got a deal with no fee and free valuation (but we were moving house, not remortgaging)

I think the reason that it is quite high is because that is quite a high LTV (loan to value). Is your house still worth £170k or is it worth more now?

At the values above you have a 91.1% LTV, most banks at the moment want 90% for lending so this may explain why you're monthly payment is high due to the high LTV. Was it 100% originally? Do you know your interest rate? Do you know you banks SVR as this may work out cheaper?

Sorry for all the questions.

Agree that London and County are good or find an independent broker

I'd also recommend finding yourself a good independent mortgage adviser to guide you through the options. I don't think £1200/month is unreasonable but it all depends on how many years you've got left, the LTV and what rate you fixed at five years ago... 5%? Before you leap, check out what the SVR is from your current lender as it may be a better deal than you'll get by switching.

Depends on length of mortgage - we pay more than that on similar amount o/s at 2.5 SVR, but, we have just over 9 years to go.

What Scarey Teacher said. Depends if you are keen on paying the minimum, or if you are on a shorter term mortgage. Proportionately (taking into a/c our mortgage is a lot smaller) we are paying a lot more, but that's because we are taking advantage of the low interest rates for the last few years and massively overpaying, to clear our mortgage early, and save ££££ over the long term.

It does sound a lot - if it's not for a short-term mortgage. We're paying not much more than that on a substantially larger mortgage.

I'd second having a chat with London and Country -it's free and you don't have to go with any of the mortgages they suggest (I found a better rate looking at the 'best buys' in the money sections of the Sunday Times / Observer) but they'll give you a very good idea of what's out there.

Also, if your house has gone up in value since you bought it or if you've made improvements, you might find your LTV is better than you'd first thought!

Good luck!

Hi everyone

Thanks so much for your replies and suggestions, I really appreciate them.

I spoke to L&C and I agree they are brilliant, thanks for the recommendation. Unfortunately we won't have anywhere near the 90% LTV as our property has gone down in value not up :(

So I guess its down to variable rates. Our current lender has a variable rate of 3.99 which is so much less than the 6.1% we are paying at the moment (yeah it was a 100% mortgage). I know its risky to rely on variable rates...but I hope they don't shoot up as much as 6% any time soon!

Thanks again

similar figures to me, was paying 950, remortgaged and paying 750 (over 23 yrs). got a low rate tracker fee free with HSBC last summer. Look at moneysavingexpert.com for tips

A drop from 6.1 to 3.99 sounds pretty good to me!

If that's the case, I think staying on the SVR is a good deal for you. I'd try to put the difference between what you were paying and what you will now be paying into an account that you can't touch easily.

That way if the rates go up a lot (unlikely for the next few years!) you'll be able to suppliment each month with your savings. If they don't you'll have a nice nest egg to pay off a chunk of your mortgage when you do re-mortgage.

I was going to say similar to culturemulcher.
If the £1200 you've been paying at 6.1% is still affordable, I'd carry on paying that so you're over paying the new 3.99% monthly payment.
That would help you get the LTV down so if the SVR increases in the future hopefully you'll have less than 90% LTV and you'll be able to remortgage to a better fixed rate.

Thank you, that's great advice. I'll keep an eye out and if fixed rates look like they're going to hit 6% I'll switch back from variable.

It also depends if your SVR is linked to BofE base rate (mine is guaranteed to be 2% above BofE base, so is 2.5% at the moment), but some lenders have an MVR (mortgage variable rate) which they can change as and when, and Halifax and B of Ireland have done this yesterday I think.

If you have an SVR like mine, then you should be OK as long as the BofE rate is low.