An increasing number of borrowers are shunning the long-favoured two and three-year deals in favour of longer-term mortgages as higher rates and sky-high arrangement fees eat into the financial benefits of remortgaging. John Myers, Head of Mortgages explores the pros and cons of long term deals and shows how the best rates compare with those on shorter-term products...

Click here to read this article.

Click 'Reply' to have your say.

---

Community

Definately is.

But I think there is a niche product missing: long term mortgage with suspensions.

I have moved home loads with work. On each occassion I have had to redeem my old mortagge, rent for a while whilst I sort out where I want to live, then apply for a new mortgage. What I wanted to do was stick with one supplier at an agreed long term rate, but suspend payment after each house sale and re start once a new property was found.

I've been very lucky, made some money on some homes, but lost £12k on one. My next biggest loss was arrangement fees with new lenders.

If people can see past the short term low rates, and lenders get real with offerring sensible long term deals I would ceratinly recommend it to my own children.

I took out a 10 year fixed rate mortgage with Nationwide about 3 years ago, i was dithering a bit at the time, but with hindsight, it was a pretty good move.

In the meantime, I'm trying to pay off a little extra each month, so when the deal ends, I, hopefully, should have reduced my mortgage quite a bit.

I took out a three year fixed with Cumberland BS, at a market leading rate, discounted against variable. There are penalties if I make a huge extra payment, but did allow an extra £100/month, after I changed part of teh plan to repayment. I should pay it off Dec 2008 when I come out of my fixed period and penalty free. Good luck with yours

I can pay up to £500 a month extra into mine with no penalties- though unless I sell my children, I'm unlikely to be able to ever afford that!

It also had a relatively low arrangement fee, around £250 as I recall. Much better than these new ones with fees of £1000!

Good luck too!