Mortgage rates rise, despite record low base rate

Mortgage providers seem to ignore the base rate the same way utility companies ignore the price of fuel.

My small boys are always complaining that it is things are not ‘fair’. Unfortunately life is not fair. If it was, the bankers who lost billions would be forced to give back their private fortunes made in the good times as a penalty for gambling the farm on suspect property deals and losing.

This is a bank that has been saved by the tax payer and yet feels the need to extort more revenue from its customers. Many of its customers have lower real incomes, higher food, fuel and petrol costs and real job insecurity. The really insulting aspect is the weasely argument the banks use to justify the increases. The bankers get more like politicians every day, thinking we are stupid and taking us for granted.

Unfortunately banks, like politicians give the public little choice – they are all pretty much as bad as each other. Not fair I know – but as I keep telling my boys, life is not fair.

Dominic – Halifax had a dominant position in the mortgage market long before it was bailed out.
3.99% is still very, very cheap by historic standards; not so long ago anything under 10% was a good rate. If people took out a mortgage expecting it to stay at 3.5%, they were living in cloud cuckoo land.
Sure, the BOE base rate is 0.5% but the banks can’t lend it out at anything like that, it’s just not a sustainable business model, rates had to go up. No doubt you want 3% on your savings to go with your cheap mortgage? Banks need to make a profit. Only then will we, the taxpayers, get our money back.
The real losers here are savers, whose prudence is being penalised by the current interest rate policy.

My advice to those stung by the latest mortgage rate increases is to look further than the high street when arranging your mortgage. About 10 years ago, after re-mortgaging with several succesive high street lenders and taking advantage of their special offers, I went to a small independent mortgage broker. Now I am a bit of a control freak and have an inherent distrust of intermediaries, so I really don’t remember what made me decide to contact this chap. I might have picked his name out of the local newspaper or something similar. Anyway, when I met him, he was a very modest sort of person and not the sort of sharp-suited, all-talk salesman I was prepared for. He asked what I needed from a mortgage and a series of related questions. When he had established what I was looking for, he pressed a button on his laptop and came up with a long list of lenders who could provide what exactly I was looking for. I had never heard of most of them, but he had placed clients with many of them and was able to recommend several. I ended up going with the Coventry Building Society who I had never heard of but who have been excellent for the past 9 years and who have never (so far) varied their variable rate for anything other than BoE base rate changes. I would never have gone to them but for this mortgage broker, but I have been so pleased with their approach and service. I hope my experience will encourage others to be a little more choosy. I believe that the likes of Halifax and Santander have it their own way because they are on every high street and thus become the automatic choice for many people.

I’d echo what the previous posted said – if you are able to move – then ditch these blood sucking banks in favour of the independants.
I too am with Coventry but would trust most building societies far more than one of the big banks.
Of course the best move is to be mortgage free – the last three years has made me look very differently at mortgages and I’m overpaying as much as I can to get out of this ‘trap’! I just don’t trust them any more – money under the mattress time!!