property investing advice for a beginner, page-42

I like to stay variable . In the past I have locked them in and it's worked against me .

Locking rates in is good for people who have a fixed income or very little to play with . E.g. someone buying a ppor .

Investors should have a bit of spare financial capacity up their sleeve so they can effectively bet that rates won't go against them .

I've just had a real quick look online and the 3 year deals don't appear to much better than a well negotiated deal . You're not likely to be able to lock them in for much longer than that without paying a penalty I would imagine .

Sometimes , it's good to go half and half , especially if your income is a bit tight and you're not confident of increasing it in the future . That way you have a hedge .

Having said all that , I have never experienced interest rates this low nor have I experienced a global financial crisis before . This is new territory . Given that the US is slowly slowly increasing interest rates I don't expect our rates to drop any further . I'm predicting that the rate changes will be pretty slow for the next year or two so there will be plenty of time to change if you need to .