| Product: |
Skipton Building Society |
| Date: |
29/05/03 (712 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: good phone support
Disadvantages: no local branch
Last year we realised that we didnt have the funds we needed to do the things we wanted, like have double glazing fitted, a new kitchen, a whole new roof and pay off the car finance.
We approached an independent financial advisor, who looked are incoming and outgoings, and worked out that we needed about £20,000 to do what we wanted.
I should tell you at this point that we had a mortgage with Barclays (standard repayment rate tracker), which was over 35 years (it was our only option at the time) and 95%.
Our advisor took a look at what was available in the market, and gave use a shortlist to work from. One of the products that stood out was the "Skipton's Stateside Mortgage" it looked very attractive.
3.29% (4.8% APR) and free legal fees for all re-mortgages, plus we could transfer it, if we moved. Plus there wasn?t a big penalty for over payments (something we should all do).
So what?s the beef you ask?
The mortgage is repayable by the borrower (us) in exactly the same way as any other UK mortgage. Your not dealing in a foreign currency (US dollars). The interest rate simply tracks the 3-Month US Dollar LIBOR Rate for the first five years. This rate has historically been lower than UK Sterling. So we should always have a lower rate than any UK mortgage.
There is a caveat. If The US rate goes up, our mortgage goes up, but at least we know the UK one will follow behind, and once again we will have a lower rate.
What we don?t know yet is how the euro will affect us......
The Skipton staff have been great, if anything they have been too over the top, we received at least six copies of every document during the re-mortgage, and phone queries (no matter how stupid) were answered very well, in plain English.
At the end of the day, our outgoing are less than before, we now only have a 20 year term, and reduced the mortgage to 80%. If you are thinking of a remortgage... DO IT!
hsiboy.
http://www.skipton.co.uk/
press_office/press_releases/go_transatlantic_w ith_stateside_mortgage.asp
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 29/05/03 Its called the:
Skipton Stateside Mortgage (hence the title of the op)
The link i provided is quite long, so you will have to cut n paste twice i'm afraid.
The link is to a press release that is dated march 3rd 2003.
Re: currently available products, i did say we did this last year :-) So I don?t know what?s available from the high street to compete with.
We are tied in for 5 years, but at 3.29% thats ok. The only product that came close at the time was from Northern Rock, followed by Scottish Widows. We declined both of those because of:
1 their legal charges
2 the initial rate over 5 years was not that good, we are planning to re mortgage again after that.
3 the flexibility Skipton offered
It may not sound like much of an offer today, but compared with friends who are locked into 8 years at 6% I think we did okay. Lots of people shy away from stateside mortgages because they have fears about paying in foreign currency etc. I hoped my op would dispel some of these.
Hope this helps.
HSIBOY.
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- 29/05/03 Bit confused what Skipton mortgage this is as your link doesn't work. More background would have been useful.
Wouldn&# 39;t have thought you couldn't beat one of the off-set mortgage/savings products now available.
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- 29/05/03 I'm not sure i understand your question.
But i guess you mean:
USDL (1.34%) + 1.95%
thats fixed differential for 5 years
The current rate is 3.29% (4.8% APR).
Its against the US Libor rate, thats the rate that banks use, not the rate of interest on American mortgages.
Hope this helps.
You can call skipton of course :-)
08457 171777 |
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