Moneysupermarket Dodgy?

shonky_2

I noticed that Moneysupermarket have added a new feature to their site today - defaulting to only showing personal loans with PPI. Is this incredibly immoral given they are in the paper all the time saying how bad PPI is, yet then they default it to PPI on their site.

Martin - are you still on TV or radio? Surely this could be something brought up about this in misleading the average punter?

deemy2004

It's not particularly bad of them, it is a case of buyer beware.
I.e. upto you, me and the rest to ensure that the right buttons are clicked and confirmed.

Now if they did not have a button and added it anyway without people knowing, then that would be BAD !

shonky_2

I'll stick to the fact that I think that are immoral Yes they have a button there, however their default sort order suggests that the Northern Rock loan is the cheapest on the market. Untick that box and that loan disappears altogether! It is quite clear that Moneysupermarket are obviously getting more money from Northern Rock. It isn't even the cheapest loan on the market with PPI, look at the average repayment amount. By my maths Northern Rock charge about 20% on their PPI.
I think we should all boycott Moneysupermarket, that would be a bit of a killer to their IPO next year.

deemy2004

Interesting......... They are doing an IPO next year ?

Would explain why they would want to bump up the revenues for the current financial year rather than to continue to build up a largee user base i.e. to give results that the web visiters would actually find most useful.

Maybe a boycott of moneysupermarkets, if these are the tactics and reasons for such tactics is not such a bad idea....

Cheers

shonky_2

Yes, they are floating in the new year. Timing obviously would depend on market conditions and appetite for .coms.

Moneysupermarket are being incredibly short sighted at the moment. They aren't listing certain cards on their site (where they don't have commercial links) OR they list cards like Sainsbury's Bank credit card or HBOS One Card as SB Card or HCS Card so no-one knows what the card is. They don't list any of the Lloyds type cards (Easymoney etc).

Now they have done this to their loans table. Incredibly short-sighted.

As for the boycotting, it won't happen because:

Moneysupermarket are listed on almost every site on the net
We won't boycott because almost all of Martin's commercial links are with Moneysupermarket and as such they would pay him the most money.

I sound like I have a vendetta against Moneysupermarket, but I actually don't. It just frustrates the crap out of me that a site claims to be impartial and balanced and then pushes a potential customer down a path that is more expensive AND that Moneysupermarket themselves have said is a waste of money (PPI).

<Rant mode off>

Shonky

heyhum

Just out of interest say I wanted to buy a small flat for 25k. I can't get a mortgage for less than 25k so would it be possible to get a loan for say 20k and use that to buy the house?

What are the problems with doing this, I can imagine timing is abit of a factor but what makes a mortgage cheaper at such small amounts?

MarkyMarkD

I'm not quite sure your question makes sense.

(1) You can't really afford a flat anywhere for less than £25k, surely?

(2) You definitely CAN get mortgages for less than £25k, although some lenders aren't interested in the smaller loans.

(3) If you use a personal loan, your monthly repayments will be prohibitive as the repayment term will be too short.

heyhum

Sorry i meant get a personal loan of say 20k paid back over 35 years and buy a house for 25k using 5k in cash.

Then just pay back the loan and live mortgage free in the house. I don't see there as being a problem because 1:) I don't know anything about the benefits of mortgages 2) as long as you make sure the purchase is made in a house price low, the next house you buy probably won't have a mortgage on it either.

What makes getting mortgages more favourable at such low levels of borrowing? Thank you for your reply, do you have any websites with information about small mortages?

Lastly, given the price of houses 7 years ago compared to the prices today, 25/20k would have been a substantial portion of the value of a three bedroomed house. I remember very clearly in 1997 when we bought our last place, the one we were initially after was selling for 37k, had three large bedrooms, 3 floors!, and a large living room and diner, even a garden.

I don't see why house prices can't be similar to that in a few years time, but my big question in light of all this, is would a lower amount of borrowing on mortgages affect the mortgage rates so much so that it would be more expensive to borrow what in todays terms are small amounts but in tommorows terms may be quite substantial proportions of the value of a property

Thanks

Walletwatch

The problem here is that you are referring to a scenario that is at best, hypothetical, and at worst, impossible.

Even if the kind of scenario you state were to happen, and house prices go so low, that £25000 is a significant portion of the price of a 3-bedroom house, this would mean that the mortgages market by that time, would have to undergo a major metamorphosis, and it is difficult sitting where we are today, to project all these changes that will take place.

heyhum

That's exactly what I'm asking you to do though, after stating that I'm aware there will be a big change, I'm then curious to know how the lowering of prices will affect the mortgage rates.

My initial question is relevant for today because there are places in the UK where you can pick up] flats for 20k even today.

I understand it's difficult, but I assume mortgage rates will shoot up? If so what's going to happen to those with large variable mortgage rates. I'm talking about a house price crash and I'm not the only one that thinks a crash is likely.

Walletwatch

Could be an interesting discussion, albeit out of context with the current one. For starters, I would see a lot of what the doomsday sayers have been forecasting in the transitory stage - loads of houseowners moving into negative equity, repossessions seeing unprecedented levels, or atleast touching late 1990s levels, etc.

Might be a better idea to start this as a new thread, as I am sure all of us will have lots to contribute !!!