Mortgage cost fell 'by 20%'

Date:Friday 29th January 2010
Author: Max Freedman

The amount of takehome pay which consumers were spending on their mortgage payments fell by 20 per cent in 2009, according to Barclays.

Homeowners in England and Wales saw the amount of money they were shelling out on their mortgage repayments fall to an average of £157 per £1,000 earned in December 2009.

The previous year the total amount had stood at £196 for every £1,000. This is the equivalent of a saving of £110 per month for mortgage holders.

Borrowers are now paying back an average of £497 a month off the cost of their loans.

Andy Gray, head of mortgages at Barclays, said that reductions in mortgage payments had for many consumers been "a silver lining to the recession".

He added that for many people it has been an opportunity to make overpayments on their loan and cut years off the length of their mortgage.

Barclays helped its own mortgage customers recently by cutting 0.2 percentage points from its tracker range of products.