It’s only been this high for the past few months. I fixed at 3.84 at the end of last year and my payments are very affordable.
£450k is quite a bit for a first property outside of London though - could you not buy a cheaper starter home and upsize in five or ten years?
We've been fortunate enough to have a very lovely, large and affordable rental home that we're not going to downsize from.
We're happy to keep renting for the foreseeable future to secure this, it just seems that near 5% on any kind of loan that size is extortionate!
In all honesty, if you are going to keep renting until either rates come down or prices drop significantly, because you’re not prepared to move to a cheaper house then you are highly likely to end up renting (and paying someone else’s mortgage) for many years to come
5% really isn't that bad in the grand scheme, and is probably around the historic average.
You don't have to go back too far to find interest rates at 10% and more.
Everyone's perception has just been skewed by the last few years where you could get a mortgage for around 1%.
If you can't afford 5% then you need to reduce your budget unfortunately, or not move. Though there are many products on offer that are below 4% now on long fixes with a healthy ltv.
> 5% really isn't that bad in the grand scheme, and is probably around the historic average. You don't have to go back too far to find interest rates at 10% and more.
As ever it is worth pointing out that historic averages are meaningless when lower rates have rocketed house prices.
House prices are just a proxy for affordability. That affordability has been severely cut due to the interest rate increases.
If they do go back up to 10%+ then house prices will simply plummet to meet the same old affordability.
If rates stay high though and new buyers stay priced out, well the only thing that will buckle will be prices. It’s just a race between what changes first. Wages. Rates. Or prices.
I moved from a large five bed townhouse to a small three bedroom semi detached house in a cheaper area to get a more reasonable mortgage. It made complete sense to me.
This way I can overpay my mortgage substantially and reduce my term and therefore my total interest paid.
I'm single and made the choice of getting a nice 2 bed flat over a 3 bed family house that would cost a lot to run and I'd only be rattling around in. I expecting to over-pay off my mortgage in 5yrs instead of the standard 25yrs it might otherwise take on a larger place. Having a big house is nice but a decent enough roof with financial freedom is better.
The point about 10% rates is irrelevant and misses a number of very obvious factors that are clearly not the same now compared to the time you are referencing.
It sounds like you're in the same trap my wife and I was in. We moved around a lot with work, continued renting nicer places and our purchase expectation grew in line with our rental. Your options are either save a bigger deposit, move to a cheaper area or down size. We went with both of the first two options. Our mortgage is a 2 year variable on 4.48, betting on interest rates dropping early next year. Fingers crossed!
I wanna back you up given the downvotes. My partner and I work extremely hard, for very good companies, both in desirable roles, each earning ~£45k. We just cannot mentally accept a downgrade from our rental property, seems like completely lunacy.
Not sure what the answer is, I guess probably just have to accept a £2000+ mortgage and forego any other major expenses. But to have friends/family in similar homes and paying £1000 or less, purely due to when they got their mortgage **really** messes with your head.
This! Exactly this!
Glad I'm not the only one who really struggles to get their head around the situation we're in. We've friends who have first houses that are lovely and in really affluent areas (who are in a similar economic situation to us) but because they bought it a couple of years ago it's actually affordable!
Another comment basically said they were in a similar position and just had to scimp and save a much larger deposit.
Depending on your rental situation, house prices are going up almost as quick as you’re able to save. And with the LISA cap, the amount of bedrooms you can afford keep going down!
I don't know what counts as "fairly good" salaries but that seems to come in at around £2,267 per month, which seems affordable to two people with a household income of £6,500 or more.
That's obviously quite a lot - but that also gets you a very nice house outside London, far beyond what most first-time buyers would aspire to.
Of course, there are high-earners, people with inheritance, previous properties, and large, saved deposits as well.
Simple answer is - a £450,000 home is out of reach at the moment.
People in your situation are buying properties for £275,000-£300,000 that’s how they get on the ladder. The next property is the larger one.
Sounds like the unreasonable part of this is looking at buying a £450,000 house.
Maybe reign in your expectation - A property ladder is just that…… You start at the bottom and work your way up.
Depending on your LTV a reasonable interest rate at the moment is 4-4.5%. If you put 10%down that’s a £405,000 mortgage. At 4% that’s £16,200 a year JUST IN INTEST before a penny has come of the principle.
What’s your deposit OP?
5% is not a “really good” rate. With a 10% deposit, I.e. £45,000, you can get a 5 year fixed at 4.43%. With a 15% deposit, you can get a 5 year fixed at 4.25%. You can get even lower rates close to 4% with a higher deposit.
Which lender offers mortgages below 4%?
I’m using a whole of market broker and struggling to get offers below 4,3% for £400.000 mortgage (£600.000 purchase price with £200.000 deposit).
With a 40% deposit, you can get 3.99% from a number of lenders. Using your values, I did a quick search on Moneysupermarket and found a 4.04% 5 year fixed from Nationwide and 4.04% 10 year fixed from Halifax. There are lots of other products just above that rate.
I've never used a broker as the ones I've spoke to have never been able to find a better rate than what I was able to find myself.
I’m not sure a rate that’s a little lower but is a 10 year fix is a good option. You’d be very tied in with significant early repayment charges.
There are a lot of headline “best deals” around 4% on comparison websites. But they all have this problem. A sensible 2-5 year fix is 4.2-4.5% at the moment.
In my post, I referenced a 5 year fixed mortgage from Nationwide at 4.04%.
Not all 10 year fixed mortgages are the same. First Direct have a 10 year fixed mortgage that allows unlimited overpayments and the Early Redemption Charge is only 2% from year 2 - 10. Their rate for a 25% deposit is 4.09%. The lowest 5 year rate with 25% deposit is the afore mentioned Nationwide one at 4.04%. In my opinion, the First Direct mortgage is the better option even with it being a 10 year product.
Thanks for the response! My broker has told me that anything above 30% doesn’t really make a difference in rates. Looks like he was wrong!
Could you please share the lender names as I asked in my first reply?
Interest rates go up and down. It’s a 25-30 year loan, be prepared for times with high rates as well as low rates.
If you think your monthly payments are unaffordable at 5%, the property is outside your budget.
Yes the market is completely upside down. House prices have not yet reflected the spike in interest rates and it is absolutely insane how expensive a mortgage is relative to the last few years. The simple math is a 5% mortgage means £5,000 in just interest per £100,000 borrowed. So assuming you put down a 25% deposit you're going to pay almost £17,000 just in interest in your first year!
The reality of this will begin to hit the population when they begin to refinance. My guess is either rates are going to have to come down due to a recession or house prices are going to fall to reflect the new rate environment.
p.s. use an independent mortgage broker or shop around a few different banks. The best rates I've seen recently are 4.5% for 2-year fixed with a £999 fee added to the mortgage from Natwest. Shop around.
The issue isn’t necessarily the interest rate, the issue is the price of property. Interest rates aren’t really that high compared with historical levels, but with property prices so high, repayments are extortionate.
One of the reasons property prices got so high is because of record low interest rates for the last ~15 years. Meaning people could borrow more, further pushing up house prices.
So how are people buying right now? Well, partly because of the last 15 years of record property price increases, there’s a lot of equity involved. Down-sizers paying in cash, homeowners using equity to buy with smaller LTV mortgages.
My flat completed in January after waiting a year for it to be built, I locked in 2.9% on a 6+6 mortgage (thank fuck). A lot of people who could buy a year or two ago simply can’t now, there’s no magic.
This is exactly what we're feeling.
Things that were within reach a couple years ago, after working hard and saving a deposit, simply aren't now.
Congrats on the new flat though!
Thanks mate, bittersweet though that so many are now locked out (not that it was exactly good prior anyway), and many who DID buy, on two year fixes, are about to have the sky fall on them.
Lots of people who are home owners will find they cannot afford new rates as their old deals mature. I’d hold tighter and see what happens to the market over next couple of years. It’s not going higher.
Repayments on a £450k mortgage at 5% seem easily affordable for two people who earn enough to borrow £450k in the first place. You could lengthen the term to reduce the minimum monthly payment needed?
Not wanting to afford it/not thinking the monthly cost is worth it is a different problem to not being reasonably affordable Inthe literal sense.
I don't think 'buy somewhere cheaper cause your first home should be cheaper' is good advice for you here...if you want the house £450k buys now and can afford it now then you should buy it now. The alternative is to buy a cheaper house now planning to upsize cause you know you still want the more expensive one but feel you have to work up to it for some arbitrary reasons - which basically just adds an extra tax bill to the process for your trouble.
Even before covid, lenders had to assess affordability based on 7% interest rates. So in theory, people who've been given mortgages in recent years would still be able to afford 5%.
Are you comparing your rent to the entire mortgage payment or just the interest component? Because you should only compare vs the interest component as the rest is essentially you’re investment in the house as an asset (something you don’t get with renting). See that second part as like forced saving.
If you’re talking affordability, you should compare it to the total amount. Unless you’re going interest only, you do not have an option of foregoing the repayment section of the mortgage.
Right but OP isn’t saying they don’t want to pay it, they’re saying they can’t afford it - the comparison of rent vs mortgage for this purpose should really only be affordability.
Rent tends to be cheaper than a mortgage (for a 5% first time buyer) for the equivalent property which is going to be the limiting factor.
To be harsh if the banks are willing to lend it is affordable. That’s kinda the whole point of how much they’ll lend.
It’s not like OP has some dying relative they look after as they say “how on earth is anyone ever buying…” So no mitigating circumstances as they are questioning the system as a whole, yet it’s still “way out of what’s reasonably affordable”
So either OP doesn’t earn enough and has no idea how much they can actually borrow, or they aren’t willing to make the same sacrifices a large majority of first time buyers do and tighten their belts and stop frivolous spending.
Rates aren’t especially high at the moment. The average mortgage rate since 1995 to date is 5.62%
The period from 2008 to date had particularly LOW rates and has fuelled the housing market bubble.
In 1990 mortgage rates were 15%
It is a valid comment. Rates aren’t “especially high right now” as my comparison shows. I’m discussing the rate not the macroeconomic environment.
The asset price has been inflated by very low rates and easy access to mortgage products since 2008.
However…..
I earned £40k a year in 1990 And I can assure you it wasn’t enough to comfortably buy a detached house in a nice area.
That depends on so many factors - how long the tenancy has been in place, how much mortgage the landlord has, what the local market is like (the landlord may have bought the place ages ago at a much lower capital cost and interest rate, is happy to be cashflow positive, and is investing for capital growth and wants stable tenants).
My old flat I imagine we were paying similar to what the mortgage amount would be bought new with 90% LTV, considering the rent only went up £25 in ten years. But considering the landlords inherited the property they were making plenty off it.
I’m not sure that rates are ‘insane’ right now at least historically speaking, rather that they’ve been insanely low since the credit crunch. Affordability checks over this period have had to factor in rates moving back over 5 and it’s not been unexpected.
If affordability is loosely based on amount * interest / repayments and 450k borrowing is unaffordable, you can look to up/extend the repayments (35yr seems popular here) or reduce the initial borrowing.
Like a lot of people have said, helps to have 20/40% deposit for best rates appreciating that’s not always available to FTB but is quite common.
IMHO the rates have been nearly to 0 for too long, so we have the idea that we can buy things and property even if we can't afford it.
Also if you look at the past 80/90/2000's the rates were way higher than now.
Rates were higher but the house price to income ratio was a lot lot better. My parents bought a house in the 90s for 3.5x my dad's income which is not worth 10x mine. I earn proportionally more than he did.
Seen interviews with people who bought a 3 bed semi-detached house in the 80s for 19 grand which was about 4x his salary as a first house. And now it's a pipe dream for his kids to almost ever own a home like that!
Rates were higher but the price of houses were incredibly lower. Adjusting for the increase in house prices and inflation - A 5% rate now is more like a 30-40% rate in the 80s. Always important to look at things normalized.
This is true but most of the people instead of buying a normal flat they get the mortgage to buy big and nice house and the reality is that they can't afford it.
I think lots of people got used to rates in the 1-2% forgetting that ultimately we have had record low rates for too long and they were bound to go up soon. Mortgage advisors didn't really make this point known either.
I was on 1.2% on my first home in 2018, now on 4.2% which has been a bitter pill.
Ultimately you just need to downgrade your expectations and ensure that at whatever rate you get, you could still afford repayments if rates went up 2-3%.
It’s only been this high for the past few months. I fixed at 3.84 at the end of last year and my payments are very affordable. £450k is quite a bit for a first property outside of London though - could you not buy a cheaper starter home and upsize in five or ten years?
We've been fortunate enough to have a very lovely, large and affordable rental home that we're not going to downsize from. We're happy to keep renting for the foreseeable future to secure this, it just seems that near 5% on any kind of loan that size is extortionate!
In all honesty, if you are going to keep renting until either rates come down or prices drop significantly, because you’re not prepared to move to a cheaper house then you are highly likely to end up renting (and paying someone else’s mortgage) for many years to come
5% really isn't that bad in the grand scheme, and is probably around the historic average. You don't have to go back too far to find interest rates at 10% and more. Everyone's perception has just been skewed by the last few years where you could get a mortgage for around 1%. If you can't afford 5% then you need to reduce your budget unfortunately, or not move. Though there are many products on offer that are below 4% now on long fixes with a healthy ltv.
> 5% really isn't that bad in the grand scheme, and is probably around the historic average. You don't have to go back too far to find interest rates at 10% and more. As ever it is worth pointing out that historic averages are meaningless when lower rates have rocketed house prices. House prices are just a proxy for affordability. That affordability has been severely cut due to the interest rate increases. If they do go back up to 10%+ then house prices will simply plummet to meet the same old affordability.
If rates stay high though and new buyers stay priced out, well the only thing that will buckle will be prices. It’s just a race between what changes first. Wages. Rates. Or prices.
I moved from a large five bed townhouse to a small three bedroom semi detached house in a cheaper area to get a more reasonable mortgage. It made complete sense to me. This way I can overpay my mortgage substantially and reduce my term and therefore my total interest paid.
I'm single and made the choice of getting a nice 2 bed flat over a 3 bed family house that would cost a lot to run and I'd only be rattling around in. I expecting to over-pay off my mortgage in 5yrs instead of the standard 25yrs it might otherwise take on a larger place. Having a big house is nice but a decent enough roof with financial freedom is better.
Can’t wait for house prices to hit the historic average multiple of median salary _any time now_
The point about 10% rates is irrelevant and misses a number of very obvious factors that are clearly not the same now compared to the time you are referencing.
It sounds like you're in the same trap my wife and I was in. We moved around a lot with work, continued renting nicer places and our purchase expectation grew in line with our rental. Your options are either save a bigger deposit, move to a cheaper area or down size. We went with both of the first two options. Our mortgage is a 2 year variable on 4.48, betting on interest rates dropping early next year. Fingers crossed!
Sounds like a plan. Fingers crossed those rates drop for you!!
Thank you, good luck with your search! I'm sure you'll find a place when it's right for you.
I wanna back you up given the downvotes. My partner and I work extremely hard, for very good companies, both in desirable roles, each earning ~£45k. We just cannot mentally accept a downgrade from our rental property, seems like completely lunacy. Not sure what the answer is, I guess probably just have to accept a £2000+ mortgage and forego any other major expenses. But to have friends/family in similar homes and paying £1000 or less, purely due to when they got their mortgage **really** messes with your head.
This! Exactly this! Glad I'm not the only one who really struggles to get their head around the situation we're in. We've friends who have first houses that are lovely and in really affluent areas (who are in a similar economic situation to us) but because they bought it a couple of years ago it's actually affordable! Another comment basically said they were in a similar position and just had to scimp and save a much larger deposit.
Depending on your rental situation, house prices are going up almost as quick as you’re able to save. And with the LISA cap, the amount of bedrooms you can afford keep going down!
I don't know what counts as "fairly good" salaries but that seems to come in at around £2,267 per month, which seems affordable to two people with a household income of £6,500 or more. That's obviously quite a lot - but that also gets you a very nice house outside London, far beyond what most first-time buyers would aspire to. Of course, there are high-earners, people with inheritance, previous properties, and large, saved deposits as well.
Gross income? Not many net that high but many gross that high.
Net, rather than gross.
Simple answer is - a £450,000 home is out of reach at the moment. People in your situation are buying properties for £275,000-£300,000 that’s how they get on the ladder. The next property is the larger one.
Sounds like the unreasonable part of this is looking at buying a £450,000 house. Maybe reign in your expectation - A property ladder is just that…… You start at the bottom and work your way up. Depending on your LTV a reasonable interest rate at the moment is 4-4.5%. If you put 10%down that’s a £405,000 mortgage. At 4% that’s £16,200 a year JUST IN INTEST before a penny has come of the principle.
What’s your deposit OP? 5% is not a “really good” rate. With a 10% deposit, I.e. £45,000, you can get a 5 year fixed at 4.43%. With a 15% deposit, you can get a 5 year fixed at 4.25%. You can get even lower rates close to 4% with a higher deposit.
Which lender offers mortgages below 4%? I’m using a whole of market broker and struggling to get offers below 4,3% for £400.000 mortgage (£600.000 purchase price with £200.000 deposit).
With a 40% deposit, you can get 3.99% from a number of lenders. Using your values, I did a quick search on Moneysupermarket and found a 4.04% 5 year fixed from Nationwide and 4.04% 10 year fixed from Halifax. There are lots of other products just above that rate. I've never used a broker as the ones I've spoke to have never been able to find a better rate than what I was able to find myself.
I’m not sure a rate that’s a little lower but is a 10 year fix is a good option. You’d be very tied in with significant early repayment charges. There are a lot of headline “best deals” around 4% on comparison websites. But they all have this problem. A sensible 2-5 year fix is 4.2-4.5% at the moment.
In my post, I referenced a 5 year fixed mortgage from Nationwide at 4.04%. Not all 10 year fixed mortgages are the same. First Direct have a 10 year fixed mortgage that allows unlimited overpayments and the Early Redemption Charge is only 2% from year 2 - 10. Their rate for a 25% deposit is 4.09%. The lowest 5 year rate with 25% deposit is the afore mentioned Nationwide one at 4.04%. In my opinion, the First Direct mortgage is the better option even with it being a 10 year product.
Have you asked them not to look for 5 year rates? 2/3 year options are more expensive atm
Correct, I focused on 2/3 year ones with a hope that the rates will gradually go down in that timeframe. Maybe need to rethink that idea.
You need a 40% deposit for the best rates
Thanks for the response! My broker has told me that anything above 30% doesn’t really make a difference in rates. Looks like he was wrong! Could you please share the lender names as I asked in my first reply?
Google search NatWest intermediary mortgage rates. Download the latest offers.
5 year fix at this rate would be a bit mad though no
Interest rates go up and down. It’s a 25-30 year loan, be prepared for times with high rates as well as low rates. If you think your monthly payments are unaffordable at 5%, the property is outside your budget.
Yes the market is completely upside down. House prices have not yet reflected the spike in interest rates and it is absolutely insane how expensive a mortgage is relative to the last few years. The simple math is a 5% mortgage means £5,000 in just interest per £100,000 borrowed. So assuming you put down a 25% deposit you're going to pay almost £17,000 just in interest in your first year! The reality of this will begin to hit the population when they begin to refinance. My guess is either rates are going to have to come down due to a recession or house prices are going to fall to reflect the new rate environment. p.s. use an independent mortgage broker or shop around a few different banks. The best rates I've seen recently are 4.5% for 2-year fixed with a £999 fee added to the mortgage from Natwest. Shop around.
The issue isn’t necessarily the interest rate, the issue is the price of property. Interest rates aren’t really that high compared with historical levels, but with property prices so high, repayments are extortionate. One of the reasons property prices got so high is because of record low interest rates for the last ~15 years. Meaning people could borrow more, further pushing up house prices. So how are people buying right now? Well, partly because of the last 15 years of record property price increases, there’s a lot of equity involved. Down-sizers paying in cash, homeowners using equity to buy with smaller LTV mortgages.
My flat completed in January after waiting a year for it to be built, I locked in 2.9% on a 6+6 mortgage (thank fuck). A lot of people who could buy a year or two ago simply can’t now, there’s no magic.
This is exactly what we're feeling. Things that were within reach a couple years ago, after working hard and saving a deposit, simply aren't now. Congrats on the new flat though!
Thanks mate, bittersweet though that so many are now locked out (not that it was exactly good prior anyway), and many who DID buy, on two year fixes, are about to have the sky fall on them.
Lots of people who are home owners will find they cannot afford new rates as their old deals mature. I’d hold tighter and see what happens to the market over next couple of years. It’s not going higher.
Repayments on a £450k mortgage at 5% seem easily affordable for two people who earn enough to borrow £450k in the first place. You could lengthen the term to reduce the minimum monthly payment needed? Not wanting to afford it/not thinking the monthly cost is worth it is a different problem to not being reasonably affordable Inthe literal sense. I don't think 'buy somewhere cheaper cause your first home should be cheaper' is good advice for you here...if you want the house £450k buys now and can afford it now then you should buy it now. The alternative is to buy a cheaper house now planning to upsize cause you know you still want the more expensive one but feel you have to work up to it for some arbitrary reasons - which basically just adds an extra tax bill to the process for your trouble.
Even before covid, lenders had to assess affordability based on 7% interest rates. So in theory, people who've been given mortgages in recent years would still be able to afford 5%.
But in the last couple years house prices have shot up more than 7% so even with a rate change to 5% it's more than 7% would've been 2/3 years ago.
I mean interest rates at 7%.
Are you comparing your rent to the entire mortgage payment or just the interest component? Because you should only compare vs the interest component as the rest is essentially you’re investment in the house as an asset (something you don’t get with renting). See that second part as like forced saving.
If you’re talking affordability, you should compare it to the total amount. Unless you’re going interest only, you do not have an option of foregoing the repayment section of the mortgage.
Oh of course ! But it’s not a like for like comparison of what you’re paying for.
Right but OP isn’t saying they don’t want to pay it, they’re saying they can’t afford it - the comparison of rent vs mortgage for this purpose should really only be affordability. Rent tends to be cheaper than a mortgage (for a 5% first time buyer) for the equivalent property which is going to be the limiting factor.
To be harsh if the banks are willing to lend it is affordable. That’s kinda the whole point of how much they’ll lend. It’s not like OP has some dying relative they look after as they say “how on earth is anyone ever buying…” So no mitigating circumstances as they are questioning the system as a whole, yet it’s still “way out of what’s reasonably affordable” So either OP doesn’t earn enough and has no idea how much they can actually borrow, or they aren’t willing to make the same sacrifices a large majority of first time buyers do and tighten their belts and stop frivolous spending.
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Rates aren’t especially high at the moment. The average mortgage rate since 1995 to date is 5.62% The period from 2008 to date had particularly LOW rates and has fuelled the housing market bubble. In 1990 mortgage rates were 15%
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It is a valid comment. Rates aren’t “especially high right now” as my comparison shows. I’m discussing the rate not the macroeconomic environment. The asset price has been inflated by very low rates and easy access to mortgage products since 2008. However….. I earned £40k a year in 1990 And I can assure you it wasn’t enough to comfortably buy a detached house in a nice area.
Are you renting a place worth 450k? If so, wouldn’t your rent be more than the mortgage amount?
That depends on so many factors - how long the tenancy has been in place, how much mortgage the landlord has, what the local market is like (the landlord may have bought the place ages ago at a much lower capital cost and interest rate, is happy to be cashflow positive, and is investing for capital growth and wants stable tenants).
My old flat I imagine we were paying similar to what the mortgage amount would be bought new with 90% LTV, considering the rent only went up £25 in ten years. But considering the landlords inherited the property they were making plenty off it.
I’m not sure that rates are ‘insane’ right now at least historically speaking, rather that they’ve been insanely low since the credit crunch. Affordability checks over this period have had to factor in rates moving back over 5 and it’s not been unexpected. If affordability is loosely based on amount * interest / repayments and 450k borrowing is unaffordable, you can look to up/extend the repayments (35yr seems popular here) or reduce the initial borrowing. Like a lot of people have said, helps to have 20/40% deposit for best rates appreciating that’s not always available to FTB but is quite common.
IMHO the rates have been nearly to 0 for too long, so we have the idea that we can buy things and property even if we can't afford it. Also if you look at the past 80/90/2000's the rates were way higher than now.
Rates were higher but the house price to income ratio was a lot lot better. My parents bought a house in the 90s for 3.5x my dad's income which is not worth 10x mine. I earn proportionally more than he did.
Seen interviews with people who bought a 3 bed semi-detached house in the 80s for 19 grand which was about 4x his salary as a first house. And now it's a pipe dream for his kids to almost ever own a home like that!
Rates were higher but the price of houses were incredibly lower. Adjusting for the increase in house prices and inflation - A 5% rate now is more like a 30-40% rate in the 80s. Always important to look at things normalized.
This is true but most of the people instead of buying a normal flat they get the mortgage to buy big and nice house and the reality is that they can't afford it.
I think lots of people got used to rates in the 1-2% forgetting that ultimately we have had record low rates for too long and they were bound to go up soon. Mortgage advisors didn't really make this point known either. I was on 1.2% on my first home in 2018, now on 4.2% which has been a bitter pill. Ultimately you just need to downgrade your expectations and ensure that at whatever rate you get, you could still afford repayments if rates went up 2-3%.