Scottish school holidays fall earlier than those down South (we’re already three weeks in, only four-and-a-half to go before school restarts, but who’s counting?) and I am just back from a week in Spain, topping up the vitamin D.
Like almost every other person on Earth, the week leading up to my family holiday was spent in a frantic whirl, attempting to work my way through a bottomless to-do list of admin before activating the blessed out of office message on my emails.
I needed to tie up lots of work before I could switch into holiday mode but also to sort the life admin that never seems to fall at a convenient time, and still needs doing anyway.
So the car was booked in for its MOT when I returned and, before I shut my laptop and started packing, I fired off an email to a mortgage adviser. My current fixed-rate deal is due to expire in December and I want to get ahead of the game.
In truth, mortgages have always slightly flummoxed me. For 99 per cent of the population, a house will be the biggest purchase they ever make.
A property will be both the most expensive and most important possession they will ever own, and the debt they take on in order to complete the sale will likely be their biggest regular monthly expenditure for decades to come.
And yet, when it comes to house purchases and mortgages, we’re never taught what to look for, how to get the best deal or what pitfalls to avoid.
We are expected to navigate such a life-affecting contract through advice from family and friends, a scan of price comparison websites, an enquiry to the bank that holds our current account, or an approach to a professional mortgage adviser. And sometimes a combination of all of these.
I was pretty late to owning property, not having bought my first house until I was 38. That was partly because I’d never had a problem with renting, and partly because I’d moved a lot as I changed jobs as a journalist, working in several cities as I climbed the ladder.
It was also partly because I was working in a fulfilling, but not massively well-paid trade, with some student debts to clear and no family money behind me.
Against all that, raising a deposit seemed impossible in my twenties and slow going in my thirties.
Having moved house once (and remortgaged multiple times) since that first two-bed terraced property in Edinburgh, you might think I’d be more confident – or at least less anxious – of the process. But as soon as I fired off that email to the mortgage adviser, the old dread in the stomach returned.
Because even with professional help, a mortgage adviser will only give you options of the deals they think will work for your priorities – at the end of it all, there is still a decision that can only be made by the homeowner themselves.
And, as someone who judges themselves harshly and keeps a tally of mental wins and losses in their head for almost everything I do, it is maddeningly hard to know if you’ve “won” at mortgage renewal – would a product that I opted for be taken off the market weeks later or the rate increased?
I wouldn’t know as I’ve already moved on to the next decision and won’t revisit mortgages for at least 18 months.
You do know if you’ve “lost” at a mortgage, however. I once opted for a variable rate as every forecaster in the UK prophesied that rates would go down and keep dropping over the term.
And they did decrease eventually, but not until long after forecast and once I’d paid a hefty price over the fixed rate that I’d snubbed.
Despite not being someone who particularly enjoys admin, sorting the mortgage every couple of years has always been one of my jobs, along with renewing insurance and paying the household bills.
Every time I’ve entered the mortgage process, I have felt a sense of resigned apprehension – picking what I think will be the best deal, with affordable repayments and interest rates that aren’t prohibitive, but knowing deep down, that I have precious little control over what will happen in the world.
The suspicion that I am either being locked into the wrong fixed deal or gambling on a variable rate and that global events will catch me out, never quite goes away. The hunch that if I just renewed earlier or later, had a bit more equity and a bit less debt, then a better deal would exist, nags away at me.
In the end, there is resignation. To provide a secure home for my family, I have to make the best judgement I can, given the information that is available, after seeking sensible, practical, professional advice.
There is no one to tell me whether I have made a right or wrong decision.
But the biggest piece of mortgage advice I can give? Don’t spend time working out the amount you have paid against the sum that has been taken off the balance. It is demoralising.
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