Alternatives to Virgin One Account?

Shortie

Hello

I was wondering if anyone knew of any alternatives to the Virgin One Account?

Our current Loan to Value is 83%, lets call it 85% for safety... I have been speaking to alovely lady at Virgin One this morning and was advised they are currently only taking on new customers with 75% Loan to Value, and with the current market I can understand why.

Does anyone know if there is a mortgage compny taking on new customers for this sytle of account who have 85% Loan to Value?

We like the idea of being able to overpay our mortgage, but being able to draw it back if needed (the boiler blows up, or the car needs fixing). We were planning to throw everything we had at it (hence wanting the flexibilty to draw some back in the event of a mini disaster), and in doing this the Virgin One Calculator say we could decrease our term from 19 years to 5 :eek:. We may not achieve 5 years I know, especially with rate changes, but it certainly got my attention...


Apoligies if this is slightly garbled, I'm trying to sneak this message on while I'm in work

Thank you
Shortie

waveneygnome

Hi Shortie,

I've had a Virgin One Account since 1998 and have loved the flexibility it offers. But is has (in the last year at least) let some customers down.

Try searching for offset mortgages, First Direct do them, and a few other good lenders (check out moneyfacts webpage).

But you can still achieve the same effect of 'shrinking' your mortgage/ saving years off your term by simply overpaying each month. Most lenders now allow this (usually up to 10% of total loan amount each year) without penalty - but check with the lenders first.

The mortgage market appears very tight and whilst your LTV is respectable, many banks (like RBS One Account) are shying away from borrowers who have less than 25% equity.......depending upon which report/survey you read....house prices are still falling and the banks want to cover their backs. The amount/volume of mortgages on offer is still small compared to the heights of 2007, and as some people are finding out, some mortgage applications are being rejected when the new lender conducts a re-valuation of the property (valuing the property less than what you think its worth).

I'd start by looking at your exisiting lender and seeing what they can offer, then ask about making overpayments first, before spending time (and application/valuation fees) shopping around for deals that may just lead you to a dead end.

Kind regards
WG

trynsave

First Direct have a max LTV policy of 75%.

Woolwich/Barclays seem to only do up to 80%

Northern Rock allow 85% LTV but you will pay for it.
http://www.northernrock.co.uk/mortgages/current-rates/residential/

NR mtges aren't actually offset but they say they allow:

• Product Fee can be added to the loan on completion
• Daily Interest
• Overpayments, underpayments, borrowback facility and payment holidays
• No Higher Lending Charge
• Early Repayment Charge of 4% applied to the original secured balance within the incentive period, payable on full redemption only

Therefore if you were to overpay like mad you could, with agreement of course, borrowback or take a holiday as necessary.

Shortie

Thanks TrynSave and WG. I was initially thinking of overpaying the fixed rate mortgage. With the Halifax (who we are with now) I think we can repay up to 10% of your balance a year but I'm worried they would refuse to release some of the overpayment if something did go wrong

I'm in the mind set right now of 'in for a penny, in for a pound' and I'm set on budgetting like crazy if it means we could mortgage free in even 10 years. Don't get me wrong, we'd have a monthly 'emergency fund' aside in a jar at home of say, £100, for ripped school trousers, or new shoes for the boys / work clothes for us... that kind of thing. We already do the Grocery Challenge on the OS board so I think we're quite sound there too. I've budgetted for Christmas & Birthday pressies... health care bits... petrol.. work travel... usual bills...

However, I don't like the insecure feeling that if we really, really needed to access some of that cash, that the Halifax might refuse and leave us high and dry. That's what I like about the offset mortgages - thanks for the name by the way, I was stumped on what to Google earlier, hence the post



Speaking with my parents, they have said they would help us out with getting the LTV down to 75% and we can repay them seperately. I've not worked out if it's a good idea or not, but has made the RBS/Virgin One account very feasible all of a sudden

Ah, also, regarding the survery fees - Halifax have kindly serverly undervalued our house and put us (on their system) into negative equity. They haven't done a formal valuation on our property since we moved in 4 years ago and we've done an awful lot of work to the house since then, increasing it's value. The problem we now have is that they have used the 'something or other Index' (sorry, I've totally forgotten the name I was told :rotfl:) that looks at the average house prices in the last 2 years down our road. None have been sold recently, and in the wider catchment area, house prices are much lower as there are lots of tiny flats in our area. I've spoken to a few estate agents for a realistic valuation and they say we can easily what we had thought. What it means though is that unless we get a survey done anyway to prove them wrong, we're stuck, quite literally to just one fixed rate of theirs. They wouldn't even offer us a variable rate. Sigh

However I know the housing market is still shifting and I don't want the property to lose more value before we arrange a new mortgage so we need to decide what we're doing soon


Sorry for the long waffling post

Shortie
xx