Mammon

And you can bet all these posts will get deleted

20 year fixes were around a few years ago and maybe still around. The problem with fixed rates is that there is usually a penalty to get out of them early (if there was no charge then people would constantly switch to lower and lower fixed rate deals as they became available). So if you have to sell up early for some reason you will get hit with an early exit charge. Even if you move house you can probably take the mortgage with you but if you need extra borrowing to move up the ladder and your current lender wont give it to you then to switch lender you will have to pay the charge. So there is not much demand for very long term fixed mortgages and so not many products available.

Sounds like the fix is for 5 years only. The SMR is probably the standard variable rate and currently 3.99%, in five years time it could be much higher than 3.99%, you will have to pay whatever it is at the time, although you will be free to find another deal else where or with the same lender. If you cant find another deal then you will pay the going SMR rate until the end of your mortgage and the rate will vary over that period.

Both gold and house prices can go up, but the ratio can still go down if gold rises faster than house prices. Your graph is logarithmic so this obscures how cheap house prices are in gold today compared to a few years ago (almost 70% cheaper!).

In london prices doubled between 1996 and 2000.

Yeah, the poll tax really worked well.

Buy him one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tap-Shower-Hose-Kit-90cm/dp/B002EP8HM2/ref=pd_cp_kh_3

"The council's budget for 2008/09 set out a total expenditure of £360.89 million, with £75.29 million coming from council tax." The total wages for 8000 people must run in 100s of millions. So £26m for pensions isnt alot. Something in the order of 10%. Still it is a lot more than i ever got in the private sector.

Sounds like the value of your house just dropped 20%.

Most mortgages are portable. At least mine is.

Thats good news. So everyone coming off a two year or longer Fixed rate deal with Nationwide in 2010, will enjoy 2.5% interest rates in 2010.

The Halifax alone has six hundred thousand tracker customers. And they have less than 20% market share.

Or perhaps house prices are not insane based on all the money supply/credit inflation over the last 10 years. Perhaps its the wages paid to the masses which are insanely low.

That line reminds me of an article in the mail yesterday about classism replacing racism in the UK.

There are several million life time base rate tracker mortgages in the UK. Contractually within 1% of the base rate. There an even higher number of informal SVRs (base rate + 2% or similar) for millions of existing mortgage holders (think Nationwide). These arent contractually designed to follow the base rate but they do. So it is hardly the exclusive club you make out, but it is closed to new members unless you have a huge deposit.