How do you choose between moving home or improving your existing one?
Your current home might be perfect in lots of ways, but if you feel you need more space, a bigger kitchen or a better garden, you could well be considering a move. However, if you’ve spent lots of time and money putting your own stamp on your home, the thought of a move and starting again could be off-putting. No surprise then that many people choose to stay put and simply extend or improve their home instead, with the added bonus that the changes they make could add to its value.
Funding your home improvement
When it comes to financing your improvement project, there are different options - you could take out a loan or you could consider remortgaging.
If your current mortgage deal is coming to an end soon anyway, then it’s the perfect time to remortgage and use some of the equity you’ve built up to pay for, or put towards, your home improvement. Even if you have the savings to fund your extension/improvement, with current interest rates being so low, you may decide to keep hold of your money and use it for other things, as borrowing is so cheap at the moment.
A good time to remortgage?
This year the Bank of England cut the bank rate to a record low of just 0.1% - something that’s never been done before. Whilst it was done to help protect the economy as much as possible from the impact of Covid-19, this interest rate cut has also meant it’s a good opportunity for existing homeowners to save money by remortgaging.
Many people only start looking to remortgage when their current fixed rate deal is near its end, but the fact is you don’t have to wait – you can remortgage at any time. Whilst there may be an early repayment charge involved if you do remortgage before your fixed deal comes to an end, the benefits you’ll gain by having remortgaged may outweigh this.
Everyone’s circumstances are different, but with mortgage rates so low right now, it’s certainly worth shopping around to see if you could be a on a cheaper rate, perhaps by switching to a different lender. Our professional in-branch Mortgage Advisers work with the Mortgage Advice Bureau, and have access to over 12,000 different mortgage products from 90 different lenders, so we can help find the right one for your circumstances.
See if you could save yourself some money by requesting a mortgage appointment today.
