First Direct Offsetting Overdraft

samizdat

atlantis187 wrote: »

How long did they take to do the Valuation after you sent the form off and did the valuation come back to similar amount you had put down as the value off ur house?
[...]

My current deal with RBS finishes on the 30th of Nov do u reckon First Direct will have completed the switch over by then because my direct debits come out on the 1st of each month and if its not done by then RBS gonna charge me at SVR for Decembers payment.

First Direct have been very quick to organise everything for me but I have had to call them frequently to chivvy them along. It has taken me only five and a half weeks from first telephone call to completion of my remortgage and I was in a hurry because I have come off a fixed rate. In that time I changed product from 5.99% to 5.49% and had to wait for new offer documents and I was also on holiday for a week so overall I can't complain. Valuation was in person and was arranged within a couple of weeks. Value was lower than my estimate but, as it was within the 80% loan-to-value limit, First Direct did not care.

I think you will be fine for 30 November. Just make sure you look at the redemption statement from RBS in case they quote a figure up to 31 December and try to squeeze a month of SVR out of you. If they do, just call them and get them to produce a statement for settlement on 30 November (or 1st December - check with them what date you are allowed to repay without penalty).

whu

adr0ck wrote: »

quick question on the first direct mortgage referred to

is it based on bank of england base rate or first direct base rate?

i.e. if BOE drop interest rates is it guaranteed that first direct will also drop rates

thanks

based on Bank of England Base Rate - if B of Eng rate drops so should your mortgage but I would phone them up and just check and also ask them how long after the B of Eng rate changes (either goes up or down) will this be reflected in your mortgage payments eg will it be a month later

atlantis187

Locoblade wrote: »

Basically its only the difference between the two fees that affects when you'll be better off with the lower rate. The smaller the difference, the longer it will take to recoup.

Easiest way to work it out is to download my spreadsheet, put both mortgages into it (including the fee on the lower rate one), and then manually set the payment to £1000 on both. Then have a look in the monthly table for each and see when the lower rate has less capital left than the higher rate one. That month is your break even point on the lower rate

I cannot get the hang off this (sorry not too good with spreadsheets) could u PLEASE work this out for me using the spreadsheet with a mortgage of £140k over a period of 23yrs making repayments off £1000 a month. How long will it take me to recoup the £999 fee if I change over to the lower deal.

jiggy2

samizdat wrote: »

First Direct have been very quick to organise everything for me but I have had to call them frequently to chivvy them along. It has taken me only five and a half weeks from first telephone call to completion of my remortgage and I was in a hurry because I have come off a fixed rate. In that time I changed product from 5.99% to 5.49% and had to wait for new offer documents and I was also on holiday for a week so overall I can't complain. Valuation was in person and was arranged within a couple of weeks. Value was lower than my estimate but, as it was within the 80% loan-to-value limit, First Direct did not care.

.

hi samizdat,

how much lower was the valuaion compared to your expectations and had your expectations included an estimate for the possible fall in value over the last year?

our newbuild flat cost £250k in Jun 07 and we have put down £245k as the value on the first direct application form (not too sure whether that value is realistic though). 75% of that should be fine, but if the value has gone down say even just 5% (more likely to be 10% - not many comparables in our development as no recent sales) then we could be looking at a big deficit.

Jig

Locoblade

atlantis187 wrote: »

I cannot get the hang off this (sorry not too good with spreadsheets) could u PLEASE work this out for me using the spreadsheet with a mortgage of £140k over a period of 23yrs making repayments off £1000 a month. How long will it take me to recoup the £999 fee if I change over to the lower deal.

Do you want me to pay the mortgage for you too?

Its really quite easy, but from a quick comparison it looks like it would take you 32 months to break even, July 2011 in your case, so whether its worthwhile depends how long you anticipate staying on it for.

atlantis187

Locoblade wrote: »

Do you want me to pay the mortgage for you too?

If u could please.

Thanks alot for all ur help. really appreciate it.

Locoblade

No probs

firesidemaid

i have found this discussion interesting - so much so i have just gone to re-check the first direct website to see if i am making the 'right' decision.

i have decided to 'book' (as there is no cost/obligation) the 5.79% tracker deal, as my thoughts were the same ie. keep the deal until a better one/fix comes along.

the fact that there are no fees whatsover really swings it for me - i did some calculations as you have mentioned above, and worked out that i am better off for about 38 months.

then i also thought that without the £999 fee i can pay that much extra off the mortgage at the start ie. 1k less. when i re-did the calculations it means i will be better off for 58 months as i will have reduced the monthly interest straightaway.

thanks for listening :rolleyes: x

Locoblade

firesidemaid wrote: »

then i also thought that without the £999 fee i can pay that much extra off the mortgage at the start ie. 1k less. when i re-did the calculations it means i will be better off for 58 months as i will have reduced the monthly interest straightaway.

You can pay off up front yup, but does your 58 month figure take into consideration how you raise that £1k to pay the upfront money? If you have that £1k spare, you could equally pay off £1k from the 5.49% / £999 fee mortgage, which would then bring that down by £1k as well, in which case I think you'd end up roughly where you started, at approximately 38 months break even.

Northtim

Its not just the £999 fee - when I spoke to FD about this mortgage the .49 deal also had a £99 valuation fee and a £160 closure fee, which are not charged on the 0.79 deal. All in I reckon over 5 years I am better off on the 0.79 deal so going that way.