Merryn Somerset Webb

And we're seeing falls in absolute nominal terms in quite a lot of areas now, particularly in London.

And you'd expect that to continue partly as a result of this rental reform.

Yeah, so that whole thing can still work.

So do you think that rates have settled for now?

Okay.

I mean, I suppose that the question that I know that everyone wants to ask, and if I hadn't interrupted John, I think he might have been about to ask it.

Sorry, John.

Is if you need to remortgage in the near future, do you do it now or do you wait?

And from what you've just said, it rather sounds to me like you would say do it now because these inflationary effects are still to come.

I hadn't realized you could do that kind of rolling, rearranging, had you John?

What about if you're buying, you're taking on a new mortgage, and say you're looking for a house right now.

Can you do the same kind of thing and think, well, I haven't found a flat yet, but I'm definitely going to find one.

Can I arrange a mortgage and then keep rolling that over?

Or I can't arrange the mortgage until I've actually found the house.

Okay, so given the length of time there often is between an offer being accepted and exchange, it's worth getting your mortgage offer in as quickly as possible because it gives you this great optionality in that if rates go up, not your problem.

If rates go down, you can renegotiate.

Okay.

Interesting.

Interesting, because I've been noticing that deals are taking longer and longer to go through than they were even a year ago because of chains collapsing in a very sort of olden days type way.

So if you have that length, this is really useful information.