Owning your own home

Any new cracks you can fit a hand in, get a Structural Engineer in to advise on repairs.

I'd wanna be calling in an engineer long before reaching level 5 on the Burland Scale in a typical London house....

Market still feels really overheated despite the interest rate rises. We got outbid on a property by 10% of our max offer this weekend.

Will it ever stop? Yo, I don't know.

Rates are still historically cheap, so folks are probably trying to get stuff done to lock them in now.

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Very true. And people who got their agreements in principle done before the last interest rate rises have more to spend relatively speaking than those who have only just got them done. So there's a bit of a rush to lock in the cheaper rates before they expire (I think it's six months?).

Our mortgage isn't up for renewal until next year but I had a look around anyway as nationwide's rates (who we're with atm) seemed to have had a big jump. With good LTV I found a fair amount of rates under 2% still, just not from the big lenders.

I found a fair amount of rates under 2% still

Who, out of interest?

We are up for renewal next year which is awful timing

Should be exchanging contracts on monday (was going to be today but someone is on holiday??) completion on the 19th

We dropped out of the leasehold house, the owners messed us around so we ditched them and found a nicer slightly smaller place which given the uncertainty etc etc seems smart.

Excited, nervous stressed etc.. even though the people we are buying from are nice and moving to Scotland so that's all locked in essentially

Tbh I can't remember the names, but I searched quite a few comparison websites and there was 5 or 6 in every one. This was me putting an LTV of 60% (which were hoping to have after all the work we've done to the house.) so I don't know where the LTV limit is for good deals.

I would go the broker route to find better deals atm.

I think 30% and 50% are the bands from memory

fair amount of rates under 2% still, just not from the big lenders

I think the only rates sub-2% these days are discounted variable rates (i.e. going totally naked on interest rates when we know inflation is in double digits). Even 2 year fixes are >3% at low LTVs right now.

I'm in the happy position of not having to worry about rates for just under 5 years having fixed with utter blind luck at O.99pc recently , but we're I in the position of having to refinance in the next few months I think I'd probably risk going on a discount variable for a year or so.

I'm pretty confident when the shit starts to hit the fan within the next year they'll have to bring rates back down. You want to be in the position where you can take advantage. Just my 0.2p worth

I'm pretty confident when the shit starts to hit the fan within the next year they'll have to bring rates back down. You want to be in the position where you can take advantage.

Going for variable right now feels like a totally asymmetric bet (the wrong way) to me. You can still fix for five years at around 3%, which is an awesome deal by historical standards. I fixed at 3.5% back in 2014 and I thought that was great then. Saving 100 bps with the potential for that to grow to 200 bps if recent history repeats itself doesn't seem worth it.

To be frank, if rates go back down again you'll make so much cash on the property appreciating that you shouldn't even care. Or take out cheap additional borrowing to spunk on something.

Interesting ('interesting') to see what happens to people who bought at 90% LTV and <2% when rates hit 3, 4% at a time when utilities are tripling.

As someone who has just gone through this, bear in one the increase in premium is large after you make a claim. And in our case all they did to “fix” the problem was get a couple of guys in to fill the cracks then paint over them. Not clear with hindsight that it was wise financially to actually have made a claim.

I'm glad you were pleased with 3.4pc but I'm fairly sure I had a 2 year fixed deal with Tesco at 1.59 at the end of 2014/start of 2015, and after that then I got a 2 year deal with Halifax at 1.69, and then I got a 2 year deal with platform for 1.79 for 2 years (none of which had any fees attached to them).

So 3.4pc in 2014 might have felt like a good deal but you could have saved a fair amount if you'd taken 2 year deals with no fees, or have I misremembered the deals I previously had?

'HI!'

Going for variable right now feels like a totally asymmetric bet

I agree with this. It’s like betting the government will step in and sort out gas and electric vs. fixing back in Jan this year. Which I did. What a dickhead.

Faced with preventing some home owners getting fucked vs. Crushing dangerous inflation they will choose to crush inflation as its fucking dangerous right now and the effect of it getting out of control is deadly.

Higher rates also benefit some - typically the prudent middle who decide elections.

It's a risk reward calculation isn't it? But for most people their mortgage is a big % of their monthly outgoings.

If you have enough space to wear the increased interest rate at the same time as all of your goods and services are increasing, then you can take a punt.

I'm glad you were pleased with 3.4pc but I'm fairly sure I had a 2 year fixed deal with Tesco at 1.59 at the end of 2014/start of 2015

Yeah, mine was 5 years fixed in July 2014 but I guess our LTV was probably higher than yours and we were restricted in our choice of lenders because we were trying to get 5.5x salaries. I don't remember what the equivalent 2 year would have been, but if it had been 1.59% I would have gone for it!!

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Fuck this shit!

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A 5.5x multiple will make you get out of bed in the morning.

A friend of mine in 2012 was acting like the sky was falling in and fixed his mortgage at 4pc for ten years. I told him not to do it.

I was feeling uncharitable once and
worked out he could have replaced both his bathroom and kitchen (which were both absolute shyte) with the amount of extra interest he ended up paying. As it is he fixed unnecessarily high for an unnecessarily long period and it cost him tens of thousands.