Understanding mortgages

8 End of course round-up

A lot of detail has been covered in this course. The information and skills provided will help you make good decisions when selecting and managing you mortgage.

Figure 9 Average house prices in the UK (in real terms) 1981–2019. Source: Nationwide Building Society (2019).

To sum things up, here are five key tips:

  • Always search for the best deal.
  • Keep your eye on the market and monitor how mortgage rates are moving.
  • Be prepared to remortgage – and not just once!
  • Don’t end up with a Standard Variable Rate (SVR) product. Other variable rate products (trackers) are usually better. SVR products are the equivalent of energy companies’ standard tariffs!
  • Don’t feel obliged to stay with the first mortgage provider just because they lend you a load of money for 25 years – it’s a commercial relationship, not a marriage!

The good news is that the trend over many decades has been rising house prices in both cash and real terms (see the graph above) – so your mortgage not only provides a home but also a sound investment too!

Well done, you have now completed the course! Now you’ve come to the end of the course, we would appreciate a few minutes of your time to complete this short end-of-course survey.

Further reading

To learn more about certain of the issues covered in this course you can follow these links to the MoneySavingExpert site:

The housing market is an important part of the economy. Understanding how it works can help you make better-informed decisions about your finances. To find out more, MoneySavingExpert recommends you visit the Bank of England’s Knowledge Bank site, which includes sections on: