Variable rate moving home mortgage rates

Variable rate mortgages explained

A variable rate mortgage is a mortgage rate that can change over time, which means it can decrease or increase depending on wider economic circumstances. Due to the added risk of rates increasing, providers will often offer lower variable rates than fixed rates. 

There are three main subtypes worth knowing about which may be able to provide more risk-averse borrowers with another option aside from a fixed rate deal:

This type of mortgage comes with a rate that moves up and down in line with changes to the Bank of England base rate (so it tracks this external rate), meaning that your payments can fluctuate based on a measure that may be a bit more easy to predict than providers’ internal decisions. So, if you believe that base rate is due to decrease in the next year or so, this might be a good choice. Of course, if you’re interested in a tracker mortgage with a long term, base rate will become increasingly harder to predict.

Some tracker rate mortgages will come with a collar or cap. A mortgage collar refers to a minimum set rate that your mortgage won’t be able to go under, while a mortgage cap is a maximum ‘ceiling’ rate. The best tracker mortgages for the more risk-averse borrower may be those with a cap, rather than a collar, but unfortunately capped mortgages tend to be very rare. On the other hand, because you’re taking a bigger risk, mortgages with a collar or no outer limits at all will likely come with lower rates than those few mortgages that have a cap.

Most lenders offer a standard variable rate (SVR). The fees associated with taking out, or remortgaging from, an SVR mortgage are often relatively low. This is because many have low setup costs and no early repayment charges. Unlike a tracker, an SVR is set by each individual lender in response to factors such as base rate rises, so your rate may increase or decrease at any time.

The SVR tends to be the interest rate you fall back on after your initial mortgage deal ends, when it comes to both fixed and variable rate deals. As such, these deals will generally have higher rates than most other mortgage types in the market.

Discounted variable mortgages are another form of variable rate mortgage, whereby the lender offers a discount on a certain rate, most commonly the lender’s SVR, in the form of an introductory term. You can find these in the comparison chart for discounted variable mortgages. For example a lender  offering a 2% discount on its SVR of 4.50%, would charge 2.50% to the borrower.

Loan-to-value (LTV) refers to the ratio between the value of the property and the loan you are seeking. So, if you have a 10% deposit (£20,000 on a property worth £200,000), you’ll need a mortgage with a 90% LTV. The larger your deposit or equity from a previous home, the better the deal you will likely be offered.

To find out roughly how much you can borrow, and therefore how big a deposit you will need to cover the overall cost of the home, you can use our mortgage borrowing calculator. Once you know how much you will need to borrow compared to the value of the property, you will know your LTV. Remember when using the linked calculator to check if the rate you’ve put into it is realistic for the LTV mortgage you’re after, and adjust your calculations if necessary.

First-time buyers will likely have only a 5% deposit, and will therefore need a 95% LTV mortgage. If you look over at our first-time buyer chart, you will see that there are all sorts of mortgages available at this level, from discounted variable ones to fixed deals. You will most likely also notice that the rates on these deals tend to be much higher than on mortgages at lower LTVs. So, the more equity/deposit you have to offer, the better the mortgage deals you can expect to be offered.

As with other mortgage types, there may be arrangement fees to pay on the mortgage you are interested in. Additionally, there will be legal fees, valuation fees and (unless you’re simply remortgaging) moving costs to take into account. With the exception of SVR mortgages, which tend to come with low or no fees (but higher rates), there isn’t much difference between the types of fees you can expect with a fixed rate deal and those on a variable rate offer.

Mortgage brokers remove a lot of the paperwork and hassle of getting a mortgage, as well as helping you access exclusive products and rates that aren’t available to the public. Mortgage brokers are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and are required to pass specific qualifications before they can give you advice.

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Both discounted variable rate mortgages and tracker rate deals can range from two years up to the entire lifetime of the mortgage. As the end of the overall term may be as much as 30 years away, however, there’s a high likelihood that the interest rate will rise over time, so the product could end up much more costly than remortgaging over several short-term deals. Think carefully and do some calculations before you commit to a variable for term deal, and make sure you can remortgage penalty-free if you change your mind.

If your mortgage deal allows overpayments, there’s nothing stopping you from paying more than the required monthly repayment amount. To completely pay off your mortgage while you’re on a deal, you’ll need to contact your lender and make sure that they allow this and don’t charge exorbitant fees for the pleasure.

If you make an official application, rather than a preliminary query, this will show up on your credit report and therefore influence it. Even a successful application could have a negative effect on your credit score for a little while, as it will count as a new loan. Once it matures a bit and you show that you can keep up with your repayments, your credit score should move upwards again and could even surpass its previous rating.