Abbey Mortgages has also found that if Brits were to invest that extra GBP5 a day by making overpayments, they would save GBP38,432 off the cost of their mortgage and reduce the term by six years.
The research has revealed that women are slightly worse than men with 49% of them failing to undertake a regular review of their mortgage compared to 46% of men. Women are also more likely to be on an uncompetitive rate – 31% admitted they knew theirs was not the best deal they could get, compared to just over a quarter of men.
According to the research the most proactive generation are the 24-year to 35-year olds, with just 35% of them burying their head in the sand when it comes to reviewing their mortgage, compared to 64% of 55-year to 64-year olds, who are also most likely to be on the most uncompetitive deal, although admittedly with a lower average loan size.
Nici Audhlam-Gardiner, head of mortgages at Abbey, commented: GBP5 a day or GBP140 a month on average is not an insignificant amount of money and we know for a fact that 5 million people could benefit immediately by shopping around.
