Virgin One Account advice needed

eddie_c_2

Has anyone experience of the above mortgage account please?

I have seen the blurb and looked at the online mortgage calculator and it looks too good to be true!

Any comments?

Cheers

EC

MortgageMamma

It is a good product but only if you fit the criteria. Get a whole of market mortgage broker to do the sums for you, and assess whether offsetting is viable in your case, if it is not you may well be better off with a flexible mortgage and making overpayments.

MM

Big_Momma_3

How do you find a market mortage broker?

eddie_c_2

MortgageMamma wrote:

It is a good product but only if you fit the criteria. Get a whole of market mortgage broker to do the sums for you, and assess whether offsetting is viable in your case, if it is not you may well be better off with a flexible mortgage and making overpayments.

MM

Can you explain what you mean by 'fit the criteria' please and what is offsetting?

Cheers

EC

herbiesjp

Big_Momma wrote:

How do you find a market mortage broker?

You could ask family of friends for a recommendation it they have had good service in the past

herbiesjp

eddie_c wrote:

Can you explain what you mean by 'fit the criteria' please and what is offsetting?

Cheers

EC

Fitting the criteria means things like:

You fit the income multiples of the lender in question
The property type is ok for the lender in question
Your visa status (residency not credit card) is ok for the lender in question

Basically the lender will ask you lot sof questions if if you give them the right answers it measn you fit their criteria

If you do not know what offsetting is, then I would suggest the One Account may not be the mortgage for you. Have a word with a whole of market mortgage adviser and let them explain what it is - they should be able to recommedn a few options and then discuss them with you.

In short offsetting works like this:

MOrtgage of £100,000
Linked Savings account of £20,000

You do not get any interest on your savings
However you will only pay mortgage interest on £80,000 of your mortgage

HTH

MarkyMarkD

I think "fit the criteria" in this context means, unless you have a LARGE proportion of the value of your property in spare cash, which you have some reason to need back in the future "on a whim", it is almost definitely cheaper to get a standard flexible mortgage than to offset, and to simply borrow less money in the first place.

Using herbies' numbers, you would just borrow £80k and pay interest on that at a lower rate than any offset will do for you, rather than taking a £100k offset and offset £20k of savings.

There are people who offsets are good value for, but they are fairly few and far between.

MortgageMamma

herbiesjp wrote:

You could ask family of friends for a recommendation it they have had good service in the past

who the hell is big momma??!

MarkyMarkD

It's the name of another member, not a mistake for you MM!

Halfa_Florin

I’m a fan. I’ve been with the One Account since Richard Branson launched it on the market. It’s a brilliant way to pay off a mortgage early. If your income exceeds your expenditure month on month, it’s amazing how quickly the mortgage reduces. The web site is good with lots of tools. The interest rate isn’t brilliant and depends on the amount borrowed against property value. I like it because it’s flexible and it’s enabled me to reduce my borrowing to virtually zero. I still use it as my main current account, after all, I have a £100k overdraft facility, no questions asked.

ViksB

For me the One Account is fantastic.
We have had the morgage for 6 years and we have bought and sold three times in that period. The one account is incredible flexible. We wouldn't live where we do now without it. We bought this house in Feb 04 and will probably pay off the morgage in a couple of months time, which is completely unbelievable.
The first few months are tough ( I guess no more tough than a standard morgage) but once you pay off more than you "need" to then effectively you have a free overdraft facility. We never have to worry about paying off credit card bills or saving/borrowing money for a new car/ house improvements or one of us losing our job, having a baby as you have a nice buffer.
However you have be the type of person who wants to save, who doesn't altermaticaly spend all the money that you can. It is also an eye opener when you go to the bank to withdraw some cash and it tells you that you are £100,000 overdrawn!!! It makes you think whether you really need that pair of jeans etc.
When I first got the account there weren't any similiar alternatives out there so I don't know if it is better to get another type, but because it has saved us so much money we love it.
I am consious that the account could be the worse account ever if you don't like to save.
Hope this helps
viks