Mortgage question "SVR"

now my fixed term is over maybe its time to shop around via moneysupermarket, never give it much thought

such a large long term noose round my neck, I do my best to just pay and forget its there

The specific svr of your bank is pretty irrelevant unless you're looking at general future affordability, once your fixed term is up you should shop around for another deal and factor in the cost of the upfront payments.

What the SVR will be is gonna be regulated by overall bank profits at the time, so things like removing bank charges for overdrafts and the like will help push it up as they seek to recoup their lost profits. Changes are however the margin will stay fairly constant and not narrow on pure monetary terms however it may as a percentage of the total.

After all as the rates go up maintaining the same amount over the base rate in raw terms results in less profit per pound.

You can tell who are the mortgage holders are, at home posting on here on a saturday night!
Seriously though, you'll get lots of opinions on here but if you're unsure don't base your decision on what you read here. Good financial advice is worth it's weight in gold any will pay for itself in no time.

Although the reason good financial advice is worth so much is that it's damn hard to find.

Never see a financial advisor without checking the cheapest price on the comparison websites first, they often can't match it.

I believe HSBC in particular don't pay commission and usually offer good deals, that's who I'm with.

Agreed, Although the OP was interested in past trends etc so wouldn't find that on comparison sites. Think it'd pay to cover all angles as you say

[hindle8907]

Originally Posted by DarrenSV650S

I'm saving up for my first mortgage deposit just now. Why are you going for a 10% deposit?

We moved out when we was young 18/19 and have been renting for the past five years, It's taken me a long time to save up almost 20000k and that's to cover my 10% deposit, fees and stamp duty.

Originally Posted by leebex

can you take out a mortgage without a fixed rate?

Just came off a fixed 2 year "deal" and dropped £70 a month. Its predicted the low rates are here until at least the end of this year, but my lender halifax nudged up its rates back in april.

I came out of a 3 year fixed rate `deal` and my mortgage payments dropped by £230 a month!

[dizzyblonde]

The largest proportion of my mortgage is on an SVR, it has been for years. The last fixed rate it was on came to an end around 2008, and was the lowest the Halifax had ever had a fixed rate at. So at this moment in time its best to stick on the SVR. The other proportion of my mortgage is on a tracker, after I remortgaged in 2008ish. It's tracked at 0.75 above the bank of England and its up to me when I decide to end it.

I have to point out though, my mortgage is tiny, and I only pay 310 quid a month, I was mortified when the Halifax put their rates up, and it increased by a whole 6 quid!

Play the mortgage game wisely, and you can make it work in your favour. Watch the markets closely. Biggest tip, make your payments at the beginning of the month, thus saving you masses of interest, and if possible pay off a little extra. I got an 800 pound refund from them last year, along with a lot of other folk, rather than taking the cash I left it for the mortgage, it worked in my favour!

I've owned my own home for 12 years, and although on the property ladder, getting the next leg up is actually worse than being a first time buyer in some respects! I'm astonished at how high some of the rates on offer are, to what I'm paying.

[Dave20046]

SVR is plus the bank of england rate, they'll probably stay the same when the BOE rate increases and everyone will be shagged a la black Wednesday.

...if I understand your question right.

[keith_d]

SVR - Standard Variable Rate.

In practice this means a rate that's high enough to make some money, but not so high that people start leaving in droves. Years ago it might have had some relation to the base rate, but these days it's more like their wholesale borrowing cost plus ~1%.

The big building societies tend to move in lock step, all adjusting their rates around the same time, because they're all borrowing on the same markets. The smaller societies either tag along, or make up some number based on the senior management's view of where the market's going.