Mortgage up for renewal - are interest rates likely to go up soon?

[ministryofsleep]

Have always had a fixed rate mortgage but am thinking about moving to a variable rate with interest rates being so low atm, just apprehensive really - anyone else been in the same situation or thinking of doing the same? TIA

Well, we've just moved house and went for another fixed rate.

It was tempting to go for a variable given that it is currently a fair bit cheaper, but they will jump up spme time in the next few years I reckon. We went for five years.

we are currently on nationwide SVR which is 2.5.
I am trying to decide whether to go ahead with a 5yr fix at 4.69 which would cost £200 more than I currently pay now.
Does seem mad thing to do (pay more voluntarily) but fixed rates are about 1% more than when I agreed this fix 2 months ago and i do think rates will go up by end of 2010, so it might be wise in the long term.
But i can't help but wonder if a daft thing to do.
None of us have a crystal ball so I would advise you to fix if you do not have alot of disposable income every month but perhaps be variable if your mortgage payments are easily affordable and you could still afford if they went up by 3%

We have just been through the same dilemma and over the course of deciding what to do the fixed rates increased 3 times! The longer fixes are currently more expensive than the SVR but I prefer to have some certainty over what I will be paying each month so would pay a little extra to have this level of security.

I didn't want to be in the position where we saw the SVR increasing and then wanted to lock in but there were no decent fixed rates available.

End of the day though, you need a crystal ball to know what will happen.

They are quite likely to go up in the next few years - they couldn't really get much lower after all!! I hope they do as I'm a saver and not a borrower but most of my friends are fixing atm

Have a look at the Money Saving Expert site - it talks on there about how to work out how much interest rates would have to go up by before it became worth being on a fixed rate.