By Len Harges
 Well over half of all new mortgages have a fixed interest rate for a certain period, usually a few years. While this does shield you from the effects of interest rate rises, they are usually more expensive than variable rate deals, at least initially, and sometimes work out to be more expensive in the long term too.
The majority of fixed rate deals have a deal period of around two years, although there are fixed rate mortgages with longer deal terms than this. At the end of the deal period, the mortgage will revert to the lenders standard variable rate, which is usually a fair bit more expensive.
The crash in the housing market that followed the global economic downturn has forced the base rate to the lowest level in years. However, many lenders have compensated for this by raising the differential between the base rate and their standard variable rates from around two percent to around five or even six percent.
It is a good idea to look for a mortgage that you can get out of fairly easily once the |
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