PTSB Fixed Rates V ECB Interest Rates

Hi Guys,

New to this forum, hoping you could give me some advice.

We're currently in the middle of getting our house revalued in order to drop down into the LTV 50%-60% Band.

We're planning to move from the MGD Var Rate to the 3 Year Green Fixed Rate.

The offer we have been sent is based on their January reduction in rates.

With the ECB dropping interest rates last week, are we better off holding off for a bit to see if PTSB drop their fixed rates further?

I know this is like asking how long is a piece of string but would appreciate your input.

Thanks.

I’m in a similar situation. Will future ECB rates or competition from Revolut when it starts issuing mortgages provide more competition lowering rates further.

The question is what is your current rate? If your current rate is high you might be paying say €150 more a month than switching now to the lower rate. If you delay and say in 3 months rates drop further and you save another €20 per month that’s great but you’ve already lost €450 in savings. That’s almost two years to reclaim the additional €20 euro saving which isn’t guaranteed.
You have to do the maths for your own personal repayment, the savings you could make switching now and if you leave it another three months if they were to fall from eg 3% to 2.8% would it be worth waiting?

Thanks for the response Duddaa.

Yes, we are pretty much looking to save almost exactly €150 a month by switching rates.
We've missed the cut-off (Jan 31) to avail of the new rates for our Feb payment as we want to get the house revalued.
Was hoping they might update it before we go ahead and move into the lower LTV band but probably unlikely they'd respond that quickly. (They changed their rates in Jan based on the ECB dropping interest rates in December)

Ya I was thinking of going the way you suggest. All you can do is deal with the here and now, and the facts and figures you have in front of you rather than speculating. Would be nice to save an extra few quid though

Was in the same position a few months back, we've only just taken the Green fixed rate rate this week. I've learnt in that time that PTSB's headline rates (i.e. their lowest available rate) don't really follow ECB announcements, if anything they lead the announcements so the recent rate drop took into account the subsequent ECB rate reduction. Nor do they fall in sequence with ECB rates, with several months between the prior drop in PTSB headline rates and this last one.

In short, don't hold your breath waiting for the next drop to rapidly follow the next ECB announcement. We decided to bank our gain as had been hanging on at 4.4% SVR for long enough. I'm a tad disappointed as wanted to get down to 3% and it's a bit above that for existing customers (3.35%), but the 2% cashback and more importantly, the ability to lodge a chunk of rainy-day cash as a credit against the mortgage swung it for us.

FWIW, we went for the 5-year fix as goodness knows what chaos Trump's hare-brained schemes economic policies will have.