ecb hikes interest rates by half a percent

10 comments
  1. Era of free lending is ended. Thankfully.

    Interest rates are to asset prices what gravity is to matter – Warren Buffett.

    It’s why everything largely bought with credit paid over years (cars, houses) have rapidly increased in price.

  2. Interest rates are something I know absolutely about. Anyone got an ELI5 guide? What practical effect does this sort of thing have on the normal person?

  3. Does someone have a choice of paying back the principle or the interest when making repayments? If the principle owed is reduced, will that reduce the interest owed?

  4. You don’t have a choice when making your regular payments. Each payment mostly pays the interest and takes a smaller amount off the principal. This ratio changes the longer you pay your mortgage. If you can overpay your mortgage (some fixed rates have penalties for doing so) this is taken from the principal, which reduces your monthly repayment or reduces the length of your mortgage.

  5. I have a feeling that the people who fixed long term over the next decade will have gotten the same luck as the people who had trackers for the past decade.

    Fair play to anyone on a tracker who gave it up in the past few months to fix long term

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