christian2018
New member
TLDR: I looked at old posts about interest rates and took reasonably upvoted predictions in some threads since 2021. As you might expect, most were confidently wrong, underestimating the rise. Possibly a product of only knowing historically low rates.
Date of prediction
Bank Rate at the time
Predicted Rate
Actual Bank Rate
Delta
25/04/2021
0.1%
Lower
1.75%
-1.65
26/08/2021
0.1%
0.1% in 1 year
1.75%
-1.65
16/02/2022
0.5%
No higher than 2%
4% 1 year later
-2
20/03/2022
0.5%
Stall before 3%
4% 1 year later
-1
02/05/2022
1%
5% worst case
5.25%
-0.25
10/09/2022
1.75%
Never will go higher than 5%
5.25%
-0.25
24/09/2022
2.25%
5% by Mid-2023
5% June 2023
0
19/10/2022
2.25%
Lower in 12-18m
5.25% 12m
-3
25/11/2022
3%
4.5%
5.25%
0.75
16/12/2022
3.5%
Peak at 4.25%
5.25% 11m
-1
Plotted on a graph: https://ibb.co/MV0Pqm0
Once the base rate started to rise at the end of 2021, I noticed more speculation in the community as to where rates might go. I wanted to look back to see how good the community was here.
I have taken the reasonably-upvoted guesstimates where I can. I was looking for fairly concrete predictions with an approximate date if possible. I tried to look for personal predictions, rather than a redditor quoting someone or something they read.
Personal takeaways:
Shoutout to this guy who was laughed at for suggesting getting a 10-year fix @ 2.8% (ok, he had a £9k exit fee, but it would still probably pay for itself over 10 years).
Date of prediction
Bank Rate at the time
Predicted Rate
Actual Bank Rate
Delta
25/04/2021
0.1%
Lower
1.75%
-1.65
26/08/2021
0.1%
0.1% in 1 year
1.75%
-1.65
16/02/2022
0.5%
No higher than 2%
4% 1 year later
-2
20/03/2022
0.5%
Stall before 3%
4% 1 year later
-1
02/05/2022
1%
5% worst case
5.25%
-0.25
10/09/2022
1.75%
Never will go higher than 5%
5.25%
-0.25
24/09/2022
2.25%
5% by Mid-2023
5% June 2023
0
19/10/2022
2.25%
Lower in 12-18m
5.25% 12m
-3
25/11/2022
3%
4.5%
5.25%
0.75
16/12/2022
3.5%
Peak at 4.25%
5.25% 11m
-1
Plotted on a graph: https://ibb.co/MV0Pqm0
Once the base rate started to rise at the end of 2021, I noticed more speculation in the community as to where rates might go. I wanted to look back to see how good the community was here.
I have taken the reasonably-upvoted guesstimates where I can. I was looking for fairly concrete predictions with an approximate date if possible. I tried to look for personal predictions, rather than a redditor quoting someone or something they read.
Personal takeaways:
- Most people were wrong, and a lot were very confidently wrong. A lot of underestimates.
- With that said, some people absolutely nailed it.
- My big takeaway from trawling through this was that the people who listened to and quoted industry experts (which I did not include, I wanted personal predictions) were usually pretty much spot on. Who’d have thought!
- Anecdotally, it seemed people who lived through previous high-interest decades were a lot more accurate about where things were going, even if they weren’t willing to give a prediction. I appreciate this is ‘outcome bias’. You could argue it was still a coin flip.
- /@uriel_1 posts a lot, and gives good advice.
Shoutout to this guy who was laughed at for suggesting getting a 10-year fix @ 2.8% (ok, he had a £9k exit fee, but it would still probably pay for itself over 10 years).