Brendan Burgess
Founder
- Messages
- 54,852
A good article in the Sunday Times ( subscription required.)
Ireland's serial switchers play the mortgage cashback game
Some people switch mortgages to get the most favourable rate. Others are lured by cashback. And then there’s a slightly rarer breed: the serial switcher. These mortgage holders rapidly surf from one cashback deal to another — before settling down with the lowest rate on the market.
One poster on the Askaboutmoney forum says he has received about €28,500 in mortgage cashback (minus solicitors’ fees). This, he says, amounts to shaving seven years off his mortgage.
....
Another poster on the same forum — an accountant — has pulled in about €20,000 (before legal fees). Having taken out a €250,000 mortgage with Bank of Ireland at a variable rate of 4.5% in 2013, she switched to EBS three years later. In 2017 she moved to AIB, and last year switched to KBC where she is on a one-year fixed rate of 2.5%. She intends to switch once more later this year — most likely to a four-year fixed rate of 2.6% with Ulster Bank.
Ireland's serial switchers play the mortgage cashback game
Some people switch mortgages to get the most favourable rate. Others are lured by cashback. And then there’s a slightly rarer breed: the serial switcher. These mortgage holders rapidly surf from one cashback deal to another — before settling down with the lowest rate on the market.
One poster on the Askaboutmoney forum says he has received about €28,500 in mortgage cashback (minus solicitors’ fees). This, he says, amounts to shaving seven years off his mortgage.
....
Another poster on the same forum — an accountant — has pulled in about €20,000 (before legal fees). Having taken out a €250,000 mortgage with Bank of Ireland at a variable rate of 4.5% in 2013, she switched to EBS three years later. In 2017 she moved to AIB, and last year switched to KBC where she is on a one-year fixed rate of 2.5%. She intends to switch once more later this year — most likely to a four-year fixed rate of 2.6% with Ulster Bank.
