People in Suffolk are expecting a difficult few months financially as interest rates soar
Interest rates have risen, and with the rising cost of living, people across the county are having to reach deeper into their pockets.
Interest rates have risen to a level not seen since 2009 - going up another 0.25% yesterday, to 1%.
This alongside the rising cost of living means that people in Suffolk are having to reach deeper into their pockets and reconsider their spending choices.
Many who have wanted to get onto the property ladder or move up on it are changing their attitudes toward borrowing according to Carl Shave, a director from the Mortgage centre in Suffolk:
"We are seeing consumers being much more aware of their budgets in respect to how much they got to go towards things such as their mortgage payments.
"So it is certainly having an impact and we're now in the market that we just haven't been in for a long time.
"We've been speaking to many a client over the last few years discussing their mortgage rates, telling them that their mortgage rate has come down.
"We're now in a market where we're having the complete role reversal where we're talking about , mortgage payments actually going up because interest rates are higher.
"And that's compounded obviously by the effect of the cost of living as well.
"The the end result to a certain degree now is lower.
"What what we're finding is many lenders who now assess it at the maximum capacity for borrowing, do that on an affordability module.
"They all do that slightly differently, but with the cost of living now increasing well, they're revising their models of how they calculate their affordability.
"So we are finding that what one person could borrow maybe six months ago is less now.
"With the new models that lenders are now working on in regards to that, so from a borrowing capacity, not necessarily the expectation from a client's perspective because they're working on what they see out there in regards to house prices typically.
"It's certainly slowed the market down slightly, it's not necessarily having an impact on house prices because we do still have a shortage of houses out there on the market.
"But that again is being compounded by people perhaps not acting on their plans of looking to move."
He also acknowledged that changes are already being made into response to the rise in interest: "It's a very difficult line that the Bank of England have in regards to interest rates at the moment in respect to where they're going to put those.
"We have very little else in our control to actually be able to help with inflation at the present time.
"There are lenders which sent us emails literally no longer than about an hour, 2 hours after base rate went up to day (5th May 2022).
"So they're putting their fixed rate mortgages up. They've acted exceptionally quickly out there."
He also believes with the rising cost of living being influenced by Global matters, and that the interest rate is one thing we can control: "These aren't things that we as a country can just resolve on our own.
"So the one tool that we do have at our disposal is interest rates.
"So until such time that we see that cost of living will not cost of the inflation side of things start to wane from where it is now, I think interest rates are one of the weapons at our disposal to try and calm that down.
"So I think interest rates are going to continue to be under close scrutiny."
We asked how they are able to help people during this time: "I think all we can do in regards to that is educate people. In the best way that we possibly can.
"And not just focus on where interest rates are, but try and educate people where interest rates could be so people don't overcommit in the future, which could leave them in a difficult situation when we have things such as cost of living crisis, when you have other things such as your food bill is going up, your heating costs going up and everything else.
"But to a certain degree we do it through the eyes of empathy, because we are people who are in similar, if not the same, positions of the clients that we're talking to and it is difficult.
"As employers, we have staff that we, you know, every employee. I doubt you'd speak to any employer that doesn't want to pay their staff the the best wages they possibly can.
"So we all want to be able to pay the best wages out there to encourage the best staff to come to us.
"But there's a very fine balance in regards to that now in regards to what a business is able to do in respect to wage increases where many businesses are dealing with, they don't say that cost of living themselves."