You are reading a single comment by @rhowe and its replies. Click here to read the full conversation.
  • Getting confused/anxious about remortgaging again.

    Coming to the end of a 2 year fix 4.79% - £1,299 pcm

    Offset - 1.54% tracked over the base rate (so 1.79% right now - £964.28 pcm) for 2 years then 3.49% over the base

    Or, stay with the Halifax and switch to either;

    2 year fix - 1.64% (then 3.74% variable) - £941.92 pcm

    or

    5 year fix - 2.19% (then 3.74% variable) - £998.49 pcm

    I don't think we'll be saving enough to make adequate use of the benefits of an offset to warrant switching a gambling with a varying rate. Especially as the base rate is touted to be pushed back up to 0.5% next year which would put the offset/tracker close to the 5 year fixed deal anyway.

    Then, Brexit.

    What do, internets?!?!?!?

  • Looks like from the Halifax website that if you overpay, you can claw the overpayments back by underpaying at a later date:

    https://www.halifax.co.uk/mortgages/mortgage-information/overpayments-underpayments/

    So I'd probably go with one of the cheaper deals (it looks like they don't charge an arrangement fee, which is nice), stash the extra cash somewhere that earns more interest than the mortgage is costing and then decide later on whether you want to dump it into the mortgage as an overpayment or not. You can easily get 5% interest on £300 a month using one of the regular savings products offered by a variety of banks: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/best-regular-savings-accounts

    The Halifax site is a bit quiet on what conditions are attached to overpayments, just some mentions of early repayment charges so check that you can overpay without penalty if that's something you might want to do, although at under 2% interest you're probably able to do better by using savings to hoard cash until the time comes to switch deal - you can probably pay off a chunk of the mortgage then if you wish (probably only a good idea if interest rates have skyrocketed or it lets you get into a different LTV band).

About

Avatar for rhowe @rhowe started