Mortgage payments soar to 830 million

Over the past year mortgage repayments have leapt by a staggering 830 million a month.

11:09 16 August 2004

Over the past year mortgage repayments have leapt by a staggering 830 million a month.

Since interest rates began to rise last November borrowers have found themselves forking out even more each month in loan repayments.

The base rate has increased by a total of one-and-a-quarter per cent over the past nine months, which in turn has pushed repayments on a 200,000 variable rate interest-only mortgage to 1,131 a month.

Mortgage debt in Britain has now reached 800 billion and Nationwide building society group economist Alex Bannister estimates 240,000 borrowers are regularly having difficulties with repayments.

However, as it stands 95 per cent of homebuyers are still managing to make regular repayments.

A homebuyer with a 100,000 mortgage will pay an extra 15.73 a month, increasing monthly repayments to 693.44.

Last week, for example, Barclays and Woolwich increased their standard variable rate by a quarter-point to 6.79 per cent.