Your mortgage is a huge expense on the family home and because it is susceptible to rising and falling interest rates it can also have a big effect on your lifestyle and your childrens lifestyle. This is where fixing your mortgage can secure what your mortgage expenses will be over a chosen period of time e.g 6 months 1 year or even 5 yrs.
The down side to fixing your mortgage is that if you have a run of good fortune and you want to pay more off the bank will start penalising you by charging you the difference between the amount of interest money they would of made and the amount of interest money they actually received.
I must mention that most banks will let you pay a little bit extra off without any extra fees.
This also has an effect if you decide to sell your home and you have a fixed mortgage. Because you are paying the whole lot off the bank misses out on heaps of interest, so it will cahrge you for it which can have a huge effect on how much money you actually receive for your home.
Think very carefully about your future plans before you fix your house mortgage for to longer period.
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