Hi-

In 2004, I was earning less than I am earning now and I went for a mortgage at HSBC because they offered a graduate mortage which lent an amount of x4 your salary.

I chose a flexible variable rate mortgage rather than a fixed rate mortgage because I wanted to be able to make overpayments and lump sum payments in order to pay off the loan asap. The variable rate wasn't ridiculously high because HSBC have a policy that their variable rate interest amount will never be any higher than 1% over the Bank of England interest rate.

The HSBC variable mortgage interest rate currently stands at 5.5% (exactly 1% higher than the base rate- 4.5%)

Now that I am earning more and am no longer restricted to my graduate mortgage, I have been looking around at other mortgage lenders to see if there are any variable rate mortages out there that are less than 5.5%... but I can't find any!

Does this mean that I have the best variable rate mortgage going, or does it mean that I haven't looked far and wide enough?

Does anyone know of a lower variable rate mortgage?

Ta

Lib1

Have u tried alliance and leicester ? - they seem to have the best deals on almost all mortgages at the mo.

abbey 4.7% @ moment.

Hi Willman-

Ta for the suggestion, but there is a booking fee of £499 attached to the Abbey variable rate tracker deal which basically means that I'll hardly save any money if I switch my mortgage: http://www.abbey.com/index/home/mortgages_index/flexible_index/flexible_flex_plus_tracker.htm

To BruciesBabe-

Thank you very very much for your suggestion! As far as I can tell there are no booking fees and the mortgage is tracked at 4.39% for two years and then 5.25% (or +0.75% of the Base of England rate) for the remainder of the loan!: http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/mortgages/index.asp?page=2year-baserate-tracker

Bloody brilliant!

I will investigate further...!

If anyone knows of any better deals... keep the suggestions coming!

Lib1

http://www.mortgagegenie.co.uk/index.aspx

Try a search on Mortgage Genie, I find them pretty good.

Cheers

Musey, you're an absolute star!!!

A mortgage broker that gives you back 50% of the commission, WOW. Great stuff, I'm due to remortgage soon and usually end up paying £200/£300 to my broker! That's close to an extra £500 extra in my pocket. I really like the abbey deal.

I had to register just to say thank you! must buy you a pint when I'm next in town.

Glad someone found them useful, I got a good deal with Bank of Ireland just before they withdrew it and was v pleased. I'll take you up on the pint one day lol

Yes I did find it usefull thanks. The survey was done earlier this week and so far so good. I believe it will take about 6 weeks in total, does that sound about right?

Have a look at Coventry Building Society, they are advertising one at 4.85%.

Also take a look at www.moneysupermarket.co.uk to compare mortgages.

*Just realised its an old one - never mind someone might find this useful*