If you have been a long time reader of this little blog then 1) congratulations and 2) are you mad or just a bit nosy about other people's mortgages?
Sadly 2024 is the year that we have finally been hit by the new interest rates. The annoying thing about it is that our first mortgage deal was a 5 year fixed one and we got it shortly before rates started their slow descent. Since it was fixed for 5 years we couldn't really benefit from the dip.
When that deal was coming to an end I suggested that our next one just be a 2 year fixed rate one. It was hard to tell what was going to happen to rates anyway and we weren't sure we were going to stay in the house for much longer so being locked in for 5 years sounded like too much of a risk.
More fool me as rates have now bounced back up to far higher than they were when we got our first mortgage deal. Am I annoyed? Yes. Have I stopped overpaying as a result? Of course not!
The overpayments
Jan - £153.79
Feb - £180.84
Mar - £143.58
Apr - £140.38
May - £57.64
Jun - £32.55
Jul - £25.33
Aug - £22.17
Sept - £24.84
Oct - £36.75
Nov - £34.80
Dec - £45.69
Total - £898.36
Thoughts
Can you spot the point where our 2 year fix ended and our new deal (another 5 year fixed because to hell with that uncertainty) began? Yes, April saw us waving goodbye to 1.71% interest rate and in May we welcomed a whopping great 4.57% (and by "welcomed" I mean cursed at).
This means that our monthly repayment is now bigger than it was when we first bought our house even though our LTV has naturally improved through increasing house prices and paying down the mortgage. It's terribly depressing but at least we're lucky to still be able to overpay at all. I'm very aware that similar increases are having a negative impact on other home owners.
Our plans for next year are minimal. We'll need to start paying for childcare (my husband is currently on a career break), neither of us are expecting good pay rises as we don't work in the private sector, and the cost of everything else is going up. I'd love to hit £500 overpayments next year, but I'll be amazed if we manage it.
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