Standard variable or fixed

[tickious]

Like many I guess, for the last few years I've been enjoying being on the standard variable rate of 2.5%
My question is should I now get myself on a fixed rate as there's talk of rates rising soonish, or should I just keep enjoying it until they do actually rise, and worry about it then.

Cheers D

[Sarnie]

Rate rises have been in the pipeline for about oooh 3 years!

If a few increments in the base rate isn't going to break the bank then stay on it for the duration. If things would get tight for you, and your LTV is low enough you could probably secure a five year fixed for not much more than your 2.5% SVR...

[tickious]

Cheers, just made an appointment to talk to C&G about it, and they said I need a 1.5 hour appointment to discuss. Sounds very much like they'll use 75% of this time to try to flog me stuff.
I still owe £100,000 on a £180,000 house. Is that enough?
Have been over paying whilst rates have been so low, so a couple of % won't break the bank.

Edited by tickious on Thursday 24th April 07:59

[GTIR]

I'm also on a 2.5%.

When it goes up then the % will ony be in .25 increments so work out the difference now and then.
Personally I will wait until that time and then work out if I want to fix as I doubt the offers availabe will suddenly reduce because the good times are finishing!

I think it will be until early 2015 when rates increase - even if things are improving it will take all the people involved months to actually do anything, after much dithering, and then it'll be nearly Christmas and they won't do it then.

Saying that I am just a bloke down the pub so...

[Zippee]

GTIR said:

I'm also on a 2.5%.

When it goes up then the % will ony be in .25 increments so work out the difference now and then.
Personally I will wait until that time and then work out if I want to fix as I doubt the offers availabe will suddenly reduce because the good times are finishing!

I think it will be until early 2015 when rates increase - even if things are improving it will take all the people involved months to actually do anything, after much dithering, and then it'll be nearly Christmas and they won't do it then.

Saying that I am just a bloke down the pub so...

Same here. I had 2 products open on SVR, one that had just come off fixed to 3.89% follwoing a house move 3 years ago and the other thats been on 2.5% SVR for a while now. I refixed the 3.89 with Nationwide at 2.89% but opted to leave the 2.5, my reasoning being that even if the rates do go up (early next year IMHO) they will likely only do so at a qtr point at a time and the savings between now and then by staying on 2.5% will far outweigh the negatives of going over what I could fix for now.

[tickious]

Interesting stuff guys. Do you know what loan to value you need to get the good fixed rate come 2015/16 as this time next year I'll own about 50%

[kmpowell]

The forward rates for UK Libor (which more or less tracks BOE base rates) are... 2 years: 1%, 3 years: 1.5%, 4 years: 1.8% and 5 years: 2%.

With that in mind I'm personally going for a 2yr fixed due to the 2yr fixed being only marginally more expensive (2 or 3 pips) than a variable at 85% LTV.