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Was paying £1,800
Now £1,145
Locum pharmacist: Amarjit Singh, 35, bought his first apartment in the King's Cross area of London last year for £330,000. Today, with house prices sliding, he reckons he might have overpaid, but is comforted by the extraordinary fall in his repayments. He took out a £285,000 HSBC tracker mortgage priced at base rate plus 0.54%, which means his interest rate is now just 1.54%. But rather than spend the windfall on cars or holidays he has decided to keep his repayments at £1,800 and pay off the mortgage early. "I just try to regard it as if nothing has changed. After all, the initial payment is what I budgeted for. I wasn't that financially disciplined when I was a student but I'm much more so now." He decided to take a tracker on advice from friends and family in Birmingham, and sensed rates might be heading down. He's also fortunate in having a tracker without a "collar" so if rates fall again, he'll still benefit.
Was paying £740
Now £189
Loan arranger: Jim Barrowman from Dunfermline struck mortgage gold when he took out a £170,000 loan from Co-op Bank at base rate minus 0.16% - with no downside limit. After the latest cut, his mortgage interest rate is 0.84%. He borrowed on an interest-only basis so, unlike the other case studies on this page, the rate cut translates directly into an ultra-low monthly payment. Perhaps it's not surprising Barrowman has such an attractive deal given the job he does for mform.co.uk, an online search platform for mortgages. He has decided to keep his monthly payments at £400 and use the surplus to accelerate the repayment. As it's an interest-only mortgage, he accumulates the additional money and uses it to reduce the outstanding capital at the end of the year. But there is a catch; the Co-op tracker deal was for two years. In December he'll have to find another loan - and tracker rates to new customers have risen in price substantially. He reckons he'll opt for a three or five-year fix, hoping to snare a deal at around 3%.
Was paying £1,250
Now £820
Musician and songwriter: Paul Oakley thanks his wife Sarah, a former financial adviser, for deciding two years ago to take a tracker rather than a fixed-rate mortgage. The monthly cost of their £150,000 repayment mortgage against their home in Shoreham, West Sussex, has tumbled with every rate cut. Their Woolwich tracker loan is priced at base rate plus 0.59%, which means they now pay just 1.59% interest. Payments are currently £863 but are likely to fall to around £820 after the latest cut. They've enjoyed some of the gain - the family will soon be off on a skiing trip to France - but have since decided to keep their repayments at around £1,000 a month and now expect to repay the loan much sooner than they originally anticipated. Oakley, who writes contemporary gospel songs, has also benefited in a second way from the credit crunch - he sells mostly in the US and, with the dollar rising against the pound, his earnings in sterling terms are up markedly.
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