If You Linked Your Rate to Your Lenders Standard Variable Rate You May Get a Nasty Surprise

In my book “Successful Property Letting” I say..... “I also like tracker mortgages. With these, there is a guarantee that the mortgage rate will never be more than say 1% above the central bank (Bank of England) base rate.
If the rate is not linked to the central bank rate, the company will be free to set any rate and call that “the standard variable rate (SVR)” This might be uncompetitive, and if you’re tied in, you may be stuck on a very uncompetitive rate indeed.”
Well folks, as the credit crunch gets worse, the poor fools who did not heed that advice and took out mortgages linked to the lender’s SVR are now seeing their mortgages go up straight away. Abbey have raised their rates today.
The message is clear - always link to bank of England base rate not some wooly SVR.
If you want to know more about buy to let financing deal ask me.
I’m David Lawrenson from property investment seminar company Letting Focus. I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting – How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling buy to let book.
I’m a property investment expert , I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a buy to let consulting service
You can read more of my property blog and details of my networking, advice, property advice and mentoring programme and property consulting at my website www.lettingfocus.com.
My next London property networking meeting is in November. Click here for details: Property Seminar Event and I am also speaking at the property investors show in London on 22nd September. I will also be a panellist at a debate in the afternoon at the show. Details here: http://www.propertyinvestor.co.uk/london/seminar.asp
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we are unbiased and independent, because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
If a property investment is lousy – We’ll tell you straight and we will tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad and we won’t make silly promises that you’ll become a millionaire overnight.
Copyright: David Lawrenson 2007. This blog is updated at least twice a week
To read archived blogs select a date from the list at the right. To read recent ones, just page down.

Sub Prime Crisis: Shop Around for the Best Mortgage Rate But Be Prepared to Pay More If You Need To Re-Mortgage

For quite a while now we have known that all was not quite right across the pond in the US mortgage market.
Over zealous brokers and lenders have been recklessly advancing heavily discounted mortgages to people on low incomes and no assets. These loans are known in the market as “sub-prime”.
Once the loans came to the end of their discounted period, many of the borrowers - who it is fair to say, were not among the most financially astute – couldn’t meet their new higher repayments and the lenders who advanced the loans look very shaky.
And it now appears that much of this lousy debt business has been repackaged and sold on as what’s called securitised debt and bought by lots of other financial institutions – cue big falls in the share prices of the banks on this side of the water and around the globe.
Unfortunately, even mainstream interest rates could be set to go up as the credit squeeze really starts to hit. This is because, as a result of the credit crunch, the banks have increased the cost of lending among themselves to the highest rate for nearly nine years. (You can see this from the 3 month LIBOR rate (The London Inter Bank Offer Rate - which is the rate at which banks lend among themselves.))
This now stands at 6.74%, almost 1% above the Bank of England Base rate.
Mortgage lenders with no branches and hence access to retail savings will likely be the most affected in the short term and the most likely to hike rates – indeed some alreay have.
Lenders who use funds from their own balance sheets rather than securitise their loans and sell them into the wholesale market will offer the better deals.
The message is - shop around for the best mortgage rate - and if you have ever missed a loan or card repayment before expect to pay more for your mortgage too because lenders will be tightening up their criteria now.
To find out more about buy to let mortgages and the ideal buy to let financing deal ask me.
I’m David Lawrenson from property investment seminar company Letting Focus. I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting – How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling buy to let book.
I’m a property investment expert , I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a buy to let consulting service
You can read more of my property blog and details of my networking, advice, property advice and mentoring programme and property consulting at my website www.lettingfocus.com.
My next London property networking meeting is in November. Click here for details: Property Seminar Event and I am also speaking at the property investors show in London on 22nd September. I will also be a panellist at a debate in the afternoon at the show. Details here: http://www.propertyinvestor.co.uk/london/seminar.asp
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we are unbiased and independent, because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
If a property investment is lousy – We’ll tell you straight and we will tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad and we won’t make silly promises that you’ll become a millionaire overnight.
Copyright: David Lawrenson 2007. This blog is updated at least twice a week
To read archived blogs select a date from the list at the right. To read recent ones, just page down.