How do I know if I'm in negative equity?

tindari2003

Hello All,
apologies if this is a stupid question, but...we bought our house for £179500 and put £20k down as deposit 18 months ago, we are on a 2 year fixed deal with A&L at 5.89% (boo!). As I want to start shopping around to remortgage soon, how do I know if I'm in negative equity? Do I need to shell out to get a valuation report or am I best going for a fee free mortgage therefore could get turned down without shelling out? Looking at % house prices drops we must be close to negative equity, although we have also made improvements to the house, so I just don't know.
thankyou!

Kylie

When the value of your home is less than the value of your mortgage

beecher

You're pretty likely to be close to it - and really need an LTV of 90% or under to get a deal elsewhere. You could phone up A&L and see if they can tell you what they think your property is worth. When your deal comes to an end, A&L might be your best bet.

Bromley86

Use Zoopla to get a value for your property:
http://www.zoopla.co.uk/

It'll probably be around £150k.

Look at your statement/call A&L to see what the remaining mortgage is - probably something like £155k.

So, unless those improvements are substantial, you're likely in or near negative equity. Either way, you're stuck with A&L.

Fliss_M

tindari2003 wrote: »

Hello All,
apologies if this is a stupid question, but...we bought our house for £179500 and put £20k down as deposit 18 months ago, we are on a 2 year fixed deal with A&L at 5.89% (boo!). As I want to start shopping around to remortgage soon, how do I know if I'm in negative equity? Do I need to shell out to get a valuation report or am I best going for a fee free mortgage therefore could get turned down without shelling out? Looking at % house prices drops we must be close to negative equity, although we have also made improvements to the house, so I just don't know.
thankyou!

Aside, check your documents that you do go onto SVR at the end. A few A&L mortgages have gone onto tracker deals that are very favorable instead and at the time they werent.

tindari2003

thankyou all for taking the time to reply. Looks like I'm stuck with A&L for the duratio anyway on their SVR, so I'm screwed if the interest rates go sky high in the next couple of years!

System

tindari2003 wrote: »

thankyou all for taking the time to reply. Looks like I'm stuck with A&L for the duratio anyway on their SVR, so I'm screwed if the interest rates go sky high in the next couple of years!

You and millions of others, if it makes you feel any better.

Kittikins

Hi tindari - did you take your mortgage out using a financial advisor? I have just remortgaged on a new deal with the Halifax and when I was discussing who'd take me on, he was able to go onto either my Halifax mortgage account or their own house price website and told me that the Halifax valued my house at X - which was about £50k below what I'd been trying to sell it for....

He also advised that other banks/b.socs would downvalue the house and that the current lender would give a more optimistic valuation of the house, as they would want to keep my business......which they did, so smiles all round!