George Wakely took out a five-year fixed mortgage last September, during a tough time for homeowners, when high mortgage rates were the norm. The 26-year-old said the offers he was getting to remortgage his two-bed property in Scarborough, North Yorkshire were “terrible”. But time was running out as his original two-year fixed deal with NatWest was coming to an end.
He was paying £450 in monthly repayments, and he didn’t want to pay much more. Rates had started to fall a little at the back end of 2023 but they would have been higher than they are now. Speaking to i , PR manager George said: “I bought my lovely house – which I share with my dog Bruce – back in 2021.
“When it was time for me to look for another deal, I found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place because I really didn’t want to pay much more than I already was every month. I wanted to make a decision that would save me the most cash in the long run. “When I was looking and I knew I wanted to stick with a fixed rate, one lender offered me 12 per cent for a five-year fixed-rate deal.
I declined this one, unsurprisingly, and I found another one with NatWest that was within my budget. “I didn’t know what the future would hold so the five-year fixed offer with a rate of 5.84 per cent was the most tempting for me.
” Now, George finds himself questioning why he didn’t take more of a risk by opting for a shorter-term deal, or a tracker rate, as his current monthly repayments of £680 mea.