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[MSE Dan]

This discussion relates to the updated

Find the Best Mortgage: Use the 'Broker plus' technique

article. Please click reply to discuss

[pretzelgirl]

we have a 65 thous mortgage and are paying off 35thou,we will then be left with a 3o tho mortgage,with 11 yrs left to pay,(due to husbands age)what is our best and possibly cheapest options? my oh has poor credit (the mortgage is in his name)he had the house long before he met me. any advice welcomed as we are unsure what to do for the best .

[silvercar]

Your first bet would be to contact your existing lender and ask what they can offer you. With a relatively small mortgage you could well find the costs (legal costs, valuation and arrangement fees) of moving to a new lender outweigh the benefits of a lower rate.

With poor credit rating you may not qualify for the better deals from new lenders, whereas your existing lender won't normally credit check you again.

One last point, make sure you won't need that 35k to reduce your debt or for rainy day savings as once you've used it to reduce the mortgage you won't be able to get it back.

[handful]

My advice is to anyone looking for a mortgage is to start here http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/home.html and do a totally impartial search of the WHOLE market.(find the link to 'compare mortgages) It will take a while to get the hang of the search methods but from here you get a direct link to the mortgage provider, including all of the offers not available to the brokers. I haven't seen this tip on any of the MSE advice but I'm sure it must be somewhere. If not, it needs to go on as it saved me hours of searching and pounds

[pretzelgirl]

thanx fo all advice,much appreciated.

[bargainquest]

Just looking for a bit of advice - we currently have two separate mortgage products with the Woolwich - £50 k on Interest only (ISA in place an currently on track) and £68K capital and repayment which we added when we last moved. We decided that we didn't want to take the risk of the ISA mortgage with all of the debt, hence the split. Is it wise to do this and when remortgaging with another lender is it likely to cause problems or can the debt be combined together somehow? The tie in expires in October so I want to start shopping around soon.

[handful]

Hi bargainquest - I am currently in a similar situation to you but in my experience I think lenders are happy to split between interest only and repayment. I have 60k on a fixed interest only (with endowments maturing over the next 2 years and a likely shortfall to be funded by other investments) and 105k on a tracker which expires in October. I took the tracker out in conjunction with a move to run concurrently with the fixed deal which was an absolute cracker and one I didn't want to surrender (4.25% for 5 years with the Coventry which expires in December , couldn't last forever.) I will be seeking either a fixed or tracker with the same split, probably a tracker to avoid early repayment penalty when the endowments mature.

[sarkin]

Hey Andy i see ytou are now an ex broker what happend did the credit crucnch, crunch. I am still hanging in but if house prices start to slide a lot it could get tricky.

[_Andy_]

It certainly crunched! Glad to be out of the job TBH though.

[MSE Dan]

Hi folks,

I have removed an earlier mention of another website from this thread, and some posts that followed it to hopefully keep the discussion on the topic of the updated article on Mortgage Advice.

Thanks

Dan

[Ian Griffiths Halifax]

Dan, you've left post 10 in the thread and that still has the spam links in it.

[TEDDYRUKSPIN]

I understand where Martin Lewis is coming from by teaching anyone to understand mortgages.

All I can say this is really treading on fine water. Please understand not all products such as fixed or variable are like for like. It is'nt simple as hitting the search engine in moneysupermarket and voila. All I say is the customers must obtain the full quote.

To be honest, customers should be reading the learning guide from the FSA.

[richash]

We have a 130/k mortgage on a new build property valued at 500k, The mortgage is split in to 4 payments as we needed extra funds to compete the house.
Now it is finished we would like to combine these payments along with some other loans etc bringing the new mortgage to £155k.
I have been self employed for 18 mths and my wife works part time. Any advice which broker would be best to speak too as my existing lender does not want to know as I am 'recetly self empoyed' although I have earnt twice as much beng se as I did when employed. Any advice woud be appreciated

[RyanP]

Through my eyes Martin Lewis is a non qualified/ un regulated advisor who reccommends his products for personla gain.

1.For example in the section where Martin Lewis lists the Uks Best Brokers he gets paid a commision from them when you go on to his site. This isnt very whole of market.

2.Everyone listens to his advice which is not supposed to constitute financial advice. Just heard him on radio 1 saying that mortgage brokers cannot advise on direct deals.We can advise on direct deals and this constitutes proper advice, recommending the most suitable product to the client. I have never heard such a lie.

3. He also stated that no one should purchhase a house at the moment because renting is chepaer. What a silly statement to come out with, no wonder house prices all falling with media/ martin lewis giving unqualified advice.

These are a few points of many, what you are reading is media for personal gain, his advice is not regulated and can be damaging to yourself never mind the nation if he is making such remarks on radio 1.

[teddyco]

I have always wondered why the UK banks cannot produce a solid 30 year, fixed rate, mortgage without early payment penalties like the financial products being sold in the USA.
Here in the UK, folks are forced to play Russian Roulette with variable rate mortgages that shoot up in times of trouble.
Why is it like this?

[Professional Broker]

Originally Posted by RyanP

Through my eyes Martin Lewis is a non qualified/ un regulated advisor who reccommends his products for personla gain.

Originally Posted by RyanP

1.For example in the section where Martin Lewis lists the Uks Best Brokers he gets paid a commision from them when you go on to his site. This isnt very whole of market.

2.Everyone listens to his advice which is not supposed to constitute financial advice. Just heard him on radio 1 saying that mortgage brokers cannot advise on direct deals.We can advise on direct deals and this constitutes proper advice, recommending the most suitable product to the client. I have never heard such a lie.

3. He also stated that no one should purchhase a house at the moment because renting is chepaer. What a silly statement to come out with, no wonder house prices all falling with media/ martin lewis giving unqualified advice.

These are a few points of many, what you are reading is media for personal gain, his advice is not regulated and can be damaging to yourself never mind the nation if he is making such remarks on radio 1.

Even though I have been reading this website for years, and (due to my job) have taken a keen interest in the mortgage and investment commentary on radio, tv and newspapers (as well as websites such as this) I have only just registered - and have done so now because ML's latest (self promoting) ramblings have angered many of my colleagues and me, too.

The Tonight program was (IMHO) full of inconsistencies, unethical 'advice' and simply portrayed an inaccurate overview of how many of us honest, hard working, professional brokers actually work.

What do I mean?

Well;

1) how does ML do his research? He was telling people to secure a deal (good advice!!) BUT if products change to 'just' switch.

Does he not realise that switching products COST?! A lender will typically charge an 'admin' fee of hundreds of pounds to switch. And what if the borrower is not eligible for the 'new' product?

This is just one simple example of the multitude of market inaccuracies that ML spouts out.

2) ML's 'stand' in the middle of a shopping centre - a trading spot which gave ML an 'opportunity' to carry out a 2 hour FULL fact Find, right?!!

Yeah, right!

As a PROFESSIONAL BROKER with (just!) 15 years experience, there is NO WAY I would spout the 'off the cuff' 'advice' that ML did (and continues to do!!!). If I was caught doing that I would be in breach of the 'know your client' rules, the TCF remit and the FSA's regulations on fact finding, researching and recommending.

and finally (for now).....

3) ML STILL states (and I think he really believes his own guff) that a broker ONLY advises on 'intermediary' products. My company has ALWAYS secured ALL options as part of our research. We collect 1) information from current lender (if applicable) PLUS 2) we use our (WOM) mortgage sourcing tools PLUS we research the FSA tables PLUS 4) there are several other 'direct' product collecting utlilites which we include too.

On receipt of ALL of the information above (i.e. TRUE whole of market research, which, as you can see, is what we do!!) we then present our recommendations to our Clients.

If you simply believe everything that ML says, then you would never know that firms like mine exist.

Martin Lewis - your inefficient journalistic sensationalism is a disgrace.

You do much good a lot of the time, but - and in particular when you 'present' your mortgage industry content - you are quite simply wrong, inaccurate, damaging and just a media freak.

Unfortunately, most of your viewers will succumb to your hyper presenting style and will do what you say.

We've had the endowment scandal and the pensions debacle - the Martin Lewis tragedy is a minefield waiting to happen.

[DBall]

I tried my current lender (Halifax) and all I got was their standard offer (o.1 below variable rate for a £1000 fee!). I then tried searching on brokers, but none of the deals could match what was on offewr from HSBC. I will have a lifetime tracker starting at 5.69% for a fee of £999 (a fee free 5.99% was available but this was marginally more expensive). So even if you cannot get ratematcher, check out their other deals as they are very competitive. Legals and valuation are free and my remortgage has been smooth as silk.

[payless]

Prof Broker .. I don't know which program laed you to register ( got to admit I usually turn over channels when financial journo's - not just ML- come on TV / radio
Think my thread
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=880695 was the first main push to trying to explain that whilst direct deals do exist - some brokers ( like ourselves) do offer a fuller service.

In ML new artivle- it got a little mention..

Yet, even whole-of-market brokers only have to look at the mortgages available to them, so a broker advertising it "compares all deals" may not be including these. While some whole of market brokers will mention these deals to you, there is no regulation enforcing this.

whether the exposure this quote reflects the exposure of last show ?

[payless]

Originally Posted by DBall

I tried my current lender (Halifax) and all I got was their standard offer (o.1 below variable rate for a £1000 fee!). I then tried searching on brokers, but none of the deals could match what was on offewr from HSBC. I will have a lifetime tracker starting at 5.69% for a fee of £999 (a fee free 5.99% was available but this was marginally more expensive). So even if you cannot get ratematcher, check out their other deals as they are very competitive. Legals and valuation are free and my remortgage has been smooth as silk.

DBall - again it depends which brokers you looked at

[Professional Broker]

Originally Posted by payless

Prof Broker .. I don't know which program laed you to register ( got to admit I usually turn over channels when financial journo's - not just ML- come on TV / radio
Think my thread
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=880695 was the first main push to trying to explain that whilst direct deals do exist - some brokers ( like ourselves) do offer a fuller service.

In ML new artivle- it got a little mention..



whether the exposure this quote reflects the exposure of last show ?

Hi PayLess

The 'straw that broke the last hump on the last camels back' was the Tonight Show (I stated that in my first post).

Of course, ML and his 'employees' are biased and whatever is said in this website mostly stays in this website - what I mean is that it is widely recognised and perceived that ML has NEVER presented an unbiased opinion on the tv or radio. (everyone has his price)

He lets us all rant and rave (and I can see that you've done that yourself once or twice!), but does he care or take notice? Not unless I pay him an affiliate / introducers fee!!!

Hey ho, back to (properly) advising and helping my Clients!