When you buy a home, you’ll inevitably shop around for the lowest interest rate, either choosing a fixed rate deal for a number of years, or a tracker deal for a number of years. At the end of that initial deal period, your mortgage will revert to the bank standard variable rate, which for the last few years has generally been a positive thing, because of the record low Bank of England base rate.

In the last few weeks, those variable rates have started to increase, as the LIBOR rate, the interest rate at which bank lend to each other has increased. Even though the Bank of England base rate sit’s at its record low of 0.5% for coming up to three years, the cost of mortgages has increased because the banks have seen an increase in borrowing money.

Now could be the time to look at remortgaging your home. A remortgage is very simply renegotiating your home loan, often with a different lender. The process is very simple, although you will sometimes pay a fee, which is often made up for by the cheaper monthly payments. Many lenders will also add the fee onto your mortgage so you don’t need the money up front.

You will have the option to fix your interest rate again for a number of years, or to sign up to a tracker remortgage for a number of years, a mortgage which tracks the base rate plus a certain percentage. With inflation dropping and house prices finally showing signs of gradually rising it’s unsure how low the base rate will stay so low, so customers who think it could increase in the near future may think about fixing their interest rate.

Those who think it will stay low for at least another two years may prefer to sign up to a tracker remortgage, as they are generally cheaper than fixed rate deals, so long as the base rate stays low.

Remortgaging your home is common practice, and over the 25 years of a typical mortgage most customers will remortgage their home 6 or 7 times searching for the best deal for that current market climate. At remortgage.com we specialise in helping customers remortgage whatever their situation, and even have a range of remortgage options for customers who are in negative equity.