Remortgaging Does Appear A Good Idea, But Not To Everyone.
Mortgage completions are crumbling to a low and the bank’s base rate is predicted to hit an all time low. Is this the time to be hunting for a remortgage?
Well, it all is dependent enormously upon your own private financial circumstances. If you are locked into a product with redemption penalties then hunting for a new product might cost you further than it would save you. But if your current product is approaching the end of the penalty term, or has ended any tie in periods, then it might be worth attempting to compare mortage loan rates to test out if there is a more cost-effective product out there on the market.
There is also, alas, another group of people for whom searching a remortgage rate might not be an unproblematic or a low-cost option. If you are unfortunate enough to have bought your house within the last few years, then with the tumbling house prices at present seen in the market, it’s possible that at best your property is worth only what it was worth when you bought it. At worst, for those that bought at the crest of the property prices, it is to be expected that you have lost quite a sizeable portion of what you paid for the house.
The trouble here is that you might find that your current deal borrowing is too high for the banks to be pleased to lend to you. For instance, if they were happy to lend you 90% of the value when you bought the house and it has now dropped in value by 10%, even if the sum on loan would be the same, the amount as a proportion of the house value has shot up to 100%. Many banks are now hesitant about such high lendings, in a lot of cases punishing those who are borrowing in excess of 75%. So although your borrowing might have seemed OK to the banks when you took out your current deal, now they might not touch you with the proverbial barge pole.
And it’s not just those that have suffered house price drops that are in this strenuous position. Until recently some lenders would actually lend up to 125% of the home’s market value. If you were in this position when you took out the mortgage, unless your home value has risen by almost 40% or more, you would still be hunting to have a loan of more than 90%. This would leave a lot of lenders unlikely to be prepared to help you.
If you are trapped with an pricey mortgage and want to move to a cheaper one, then the mortgage market can be a mine field. Check that you make contact with a mortgage advisor and let them compare mortgage rates for you, to see if they can unearth some good mortgages for you.
Keith Lunt writes for the comparemortgagerates.co.uk website, where you can get helpful information about mortgage interest rates and make contact with a local broker who may be able to assist you in searching a new remortgage product.
Need money? Become a forex trader and solve all your financial issues!
Archived under Finance Tips Comments