MARTIN Lewis has explained what the historic Bank of England interest rate hike this week means for your mortgage.
The BoE yesterday raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points to 3% – the biggest increase since the 1980s.
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, the Money Saving Expert explained how the hike will affect mortgages.
He warned that homeowners on a variable, discount or tracker rate mortgage will see a rise in what they pay “pretty quickly”.
Martin said: “My rule of thumb for how much it will go up by on a typical repayment mortgage is to expect to pay around £40 a month more per £100,000 of a mortgage.”
So, over a year that would be around £480 per £100,000 of a mortgage.
If you’re on a fixed-rate mortgage, your rate is locked in for now so you won’t see any change until you come to renew.
Martin said: “What you will see is – and what you absolutely need to be prepared for – is you need to know the date when your fixed rate mortgage is going to end.”
He recommended preparing three to six months before that happens and looking at what you can do.
“In no uncertain terms though, anyone who fixed over the last couple of years needs to be expecting to pay very substantially more when their current fix comes to an end,” he said.
So, preparing your finances for that rate hike when it happens is really important.
But despite this being the biggest interest rate rise in 33 years, there may be some relief on the way for homeowners.
The Bank used the announcement as an opportunity to revise its predictions on how much interest rates will rise in future, and this may bring some relief on mortgage bills.
After the mini-Budget, it had warned that rates would hit 6% next year, which caused mortgage lenders to hike fixed bills.
However, yesterday it said that rates would hit a maximum of 4.6%.
This opens the way for lenders to reduce some rates.
Lenders price mortgages based on what financial markets predict interest rates will be in the next few years, rather than what the current interest rate is.
Last night, Barclays became the first bank to cut bills for mortgage customers on standard variable rates, known as SVRs.
Below we have outlined exactly what yesterday’s news means for your mortgage.
What does it mean for mortgages?
Exactly what will happen to your bill will depend on the type of mortgage you have – and this is unchartered territory.
Around 800,000 homeowners on a tracker mortgage directly linked to the base rate should see a rise.
Barclays has confirmed to The Sun that new customers will pay more from today and existing homeowners from December 1.
The bank will also cut SVR rates by 0.25 percentage points from December 1.
Those on a fixed rate are safe for now – but they may face a jump in borrowing costs when they come to remortgaging.
Around 2.2million borrowers are due to come to the end of a deal that they fixed when the base rate was at a historic low of 0.1%.
On a fixed deal, you lock in a rate for a certain period of time which keeps payments the same.
For example, someone taking out a £250,000 mortgage over 25 years back in November 2021 would have expected to pay £1,100 a month.
But if someone took out the same two-year fix now they’d expect to pay £1,683 a month – up £583 on last year.
But as the Bank of England now expects interest rates to peak at 4.5% – lower than the previous 6% experts had warned of – it means they may face a less severe rise than previously feared.
Some fixed mortgage deals have had their rates reduced in recent days, but Barclays said that there was no change to its fixed rates.
The Sun reported that a number of lenders started cutting their deals last week.
The average two-year-fixed mortgage rate is now down by 0.17% points since its high on October 20 – from 6.65% to 6.48%.
And average five-year fixed mortgage rates are also down by 0.18% points from 6.51% to 6.33%.
The predictions come after mortgage rates hit a 14-year high last month.
Mortgage rates rose substantially as the number of deals on the market nosedived following Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget in September.
The fall-out from the mini-Budget sent the pound plummeting against the dollar to a low of $1.03 on September 26.
And it led the Bank of England to warn that interest rates would rise to 6% next year.
But, in recent days the markets reacted positively to Rishi Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister – bringing some stability to the mortgage markets.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will now deliver an Autumn Statement on November 17 – where he is expected to unleash spending cuts to plug a monster £40billion black hole in the public purse.
