How long would you fix for now?

[Huntzberger]

Our fixed mortgage rate runs out in Feb '23, we've got a call booked to discuss the remortgage rate on Monday - that's the earliest we could get. I've asked for any cancellations to talk earlier, but changing before the 1st October will cost us the early repayment fee (c£1.2k), plus immediately paying higher rate. LTV is 50%.

We're resigned to paying £100's more, so I'll grab whatever rate we can on Monday, but I don't know how long to fix for? 3 years could land us in the middle of a massive recession, 5 years with basically no discretionary spending available feels awful.

I know no-ones got a crystal ball, but have no-one to talk about it in real life and am just stewing away getting nowhere.

We’ve just done ours for 5 years. We did contemplate 3 years but felt 5 may be better. We only did it two years ago and obviously if we’d had a crystal ball we’d have fixed it for longer as we are now paying an extra £120 a month on our mortgage 😢

I don't think anyone will be able to answer your question, there are so many variables. It's hard to predict what will happen over the medium to long term. For what it's worth, if I still had a mortgage to pay I'd be looking to fix at a rate I can afford for at least five years but that's just me, I'm risk averse.

We're the same, now I'm kicking myself for not fixing for longer :(

What are your plans for the next 3-5 years? Might you want to move?
I don't think rates will be decreasing in 5 years time. So, I'd suggest fixing for as long as you think you will be in the house. Maybe even 10 years?

5 years and overpay as much as you possibly can every month so at the end of 5 years the capital you need to repay will be smaller…goodness knows where interest rates will be in 5 years time. If you can reduce the capital, you will be less impacted by high rates. If they are low, then it just means you can pay mortgage off even more quickly.

About 3 months ago I fixed for 10 years with no early repayment charge. I’m paying a bit more for the 10 year fix (£20 a month I think) but the easy exit gives us flexibility in case an economic miracle happens and interest rates drop significantly.

ive just fixed ours for 5 years.

We are kicking ourselves too. Add that extra £120 to all the other price rises and it’s really not good.

I would fix for as long as you can. I think we are in for a long, deep recession and that rates are not going to be as low as they are now for a v long time.

That's a good thing to think about, thanks. We only fixed for two years before as I was hoping we'd be able to sell and move to a larger property when it finished. Not going to happen now!

We are fixing for 5, I would not consider 3 years with the way things are going.
In 5 years my children will be older, if need be I can work more etc

most mortgage providers have pulled fixed rate mortgages after yesterday

We fixed for 5 a few months ago
New products kick in in coming months (more than 1 mortgage)
It's around £130 more p/m which is doable but just not great to loose that discretionary spending money!

We can absorb that increase for next 5 years and hopefully be in a better LTV rate by then (currently LTV is around 66%)

However we did fix on rates below 3% so that's a win

Less than 3% sounds great! I can stomach up to about 5% (about £300 extra a month), then might need to extend the term instead

We're fixing for 5 years. We're taking comfort in the fact that we know we'll be able to pay the mortgage for the next 5 years - then in 5 years all of our DC will be at school, and my mum will have retired so can help with pick-ups and I'll be able to work more. Even though right now it means little discretionary spending money available - so we'll just have to figure out ways to get more (somehow!).

Nationwide just released their new rates, if anyone is interested.

www.nationwide-intermediary.co.uk/news/2022/september/ratechange?utm_source=NFI&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13492978_NFI4788%20NFI%20Rate%20change%2026.09.22%20JF%20%2AAPPROVED%2A&dm_i=5KB,8178Y,R1B977,WV5V4,1

Looks like 5.6% to 6.1%
How does that compare to current fixes?

We just fixed for 5 years. We managed to get a cancellation appointment the day before our rate was pulled. Fixed at 3.65% (up from 1%). The damage is an extra £250. We can weather that, but I said to DH if we have to find more again in 2 years (which would undoubtedly be the case) it will be painful. I'm returning to work next year and we can crank up the overpayments then.

I should say, we fixed only last week. If we'd fixed 6 weeks ago (or so, we put it off as we had an early repayment fee which we've decided to just pay) we could have fixed at around 2.5%. The way things are going, I'd fix in a new rate as soon as you're able.

I've fixed for five years on my purchase but now wishing I'd gone for ten!

We recently fixed for 5 years purely because 10 seemed too long to commit to if we want to move (I know you can port etc). We paid our early repayment charge and just bit the bullet and got I think 3.3% at 60% LTV. I'm glad we did even though it still seems high compared to what we were paying

We paid early repayment charges of £4.5k back in May to get out of our previous 5 year fix (which had 1 year left to run) and got a new 5 year fix at 2%. At the time I was kicking myself I hadn’t done it earlier but now so relieved I did it when I did. Personally I’d fix now for as long as you can.

Thanks for that, we're with Nationwide, I think the fixes were around 3.5%? Now looking at that we're looking at a five year fix at around 4.5%. Fingers crossed that holds for another few days.

If it helps all the five year people, we just fixed for two, because at this point we're going part interest-only as a sort of bridging arrangement, so we wanted to be able to move to full repayment asap. So we're probably totally screwed. We'll just go for the overpay like crazy option so at least at the end of the two years we'll need to borrow very slightly less.