Mortgage Rates

Interest applies to any debt and mortgages are no exception – the Mortgage Rate is the rate of interest applied to your loan by the lender, all lenders offer different rates.

Interest is essentially the cost of loaning money – the rate of interest determines the size of that cost. The lower the rate the smaller the cost to you.

Mortgage Rates available to the public are based on what the lender themselves have paid for the funds and the biggest source of funds is the Bank of England – this is why the rate at which Bank of England charges is known as the ‘Base Rate’.

The Mortgage Rate will affect how much money you end up paying back in total and will also affect your monthly mortgage repayments

Your Rate Affects Your Mortgage as Follows;

Capital = The mortgage funds you have borrowed.

Interest = The extra cost added of borrowing capital.

Interest Rate = The size of the Interest Cost.

There are two types of Mortgages Rates, Fixed Rate and Variable Rate.

Fixed Rate;You lock in an agreed rate for an agreed term, for e.g. 1.8% for three years, as a result your monthly repayments remain the same for this period of time. The benefit of this scenario is that you can budget for your payments, it is also favourable if you think rates are likely to increase.

Variable Rate; Your interest rate fluctuates in accordance with the Base Rate and therefore so do your repayments, the obvious advantage here is that if the rate falls then your repayments drop but conversely if the rate increases your repayments increase.

Use our mortgage calculator to get an indication on costs and mortgage rates.