Is it best to go direct to bank or use broker?

radley123

Hi,

we are First Time buyers looking for a mortgage for a property of £127,500. We will be wanting a deal with 90% LTV and have seen a couple of deals that we think would be suitable for us.

We are due to have a Financial Advisor come to visit us in the next couple of days but we aren't sure whether to go through him or go to the banks directly.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thank you

BASFORDLAD

Well get the advice from him (if its free), then go to the banks and compare costs etc!

gem599

We've just used a nationwide broker that compares all banks... we'd already been straight to our bank but after comparing we found that our bank had almost the worst deal!

elise83_2

As long as your broker is free, nothing to stop you from enquiring at both and also using the online mortgage comparison sites to get the best deal. I would however prefer to deal directly with the mortgage lender as involving a third party can always lead to delays as you're not necessarily going to be a broker's first priority.

Doshwaster

I'm just starting out too.

The first thing I did was go to my bank to get an idea of affordability and they gave me an "agreement in principle" certificate. I wasn't that impressed by the branch mortgage adviser's knowledge and and was aware that they were only offering their own products. The one good thing is that EA's liked that I had the certificate as it make me look like a serious buyer.

I then popped into an IFA and had a really good chat with one of their adviser ladies who explained the whole house buying purchase from beginning to end and explained all my options (the first person to do so in my house hunt!). We had a look at several purchasing and insurance scenarios with no commitment from me. I was tempted then to hand over my entire financial life to her.

I then tried another IFA a few doors down and he was a miserable sod.

So, my current plan when I finally get around to making an office is to initially go back to my nice IFA lady to get a quote from their basket of mortgage suppliers then go back to my bank (and maybe a few other places) and see if they can beat it.

Fire_Fox

Is it usual to have mortgage brokers come to your house?? Puts me in mind of those double glazing salesmen that sit in your front room for six hours until you are so dehydrated and disoriented you sign for a new drive and new roof when you own a ground floor flat but no car.

gem599

lol. We had our broker to our house to work out the budgets etc and she wasn't pushy at all! In terms of the mortgage she has always been happy to help and advise without pressure. However she did try and sell the insurance and their solicitor service (e.g. the saga that is countrywide!) and I'd give both a wide berth.

Wazzoo

I'm trying to get my head round the whole broker/no broker situation at the moment.

The current advice from MoneySavingExpert is to go with a broker, cheifly for the following reasons:
1. They can search the whole market as opposed to just your own bank
2. They can hand hold you a bit through the process (if you've got a good one)
3. They can access deals that are not available to the public
4. Its the biggest financial commitment of you're life - good to get professional advice.

To which my thoughts are
1. Well, so can I. I spent a night last week trawling through all the banks/mortgage providers and making a big list of all the fixed/variable/offset rates on offer and their fees etc and have come up with my own best buy list. Now granted not everyone has that time or inclination but I'd rather do it myself than pay someone else to (noted that not all brokers charge a fee..but hey..doing this has given me a much better idea of whats out there than just taking the best figure the broker offers me).
2. Again, I have quite a bit of time on my hand and the inclination so I've spent many many hours researching the house buying process and everything that goes with it. Granted I will never be at the level of a professional but I feel that I know enough to navigate my way through the processs and know the resources I can go to should I find something I don't understand.
3. This is debatable..might have been more important 10 years ago but lately it seems that some banks are tending to keep the better deals for themselves. There's a big row over dual pricing going on between mortgage advisors and banks over this because its putting brokers out of business. Seems less likely these days that a broker is going to be able to pull a stunning deal out of the hat.
4. This is the only thing that sways me. I'm quite aware of the size money I'll be borrowing and putting a foot wrong or filling in a form wrong could cost me hundreds or even thousands of pounds. Is this worth paying an extra £400-500 for...maybe.

Any other thoughts or obvious things I'm missing. I do appreciate that I might not be the average person given I have the time to invest it researching everything and also the inclination to combined with the desire to save money, but given thats the case is there a silver bullet that the mortgage advisor out there can offer me that I've missed?

wessexw

I have unusual financial circumstances and tried two different brokers who are supposed to specialise in my type of situation, they both came back with very limited results so I ended up ringing around lenders myself and had positive results with way more lenders than the brokers came up with. Both of these brokers were supposed to be ones that would check the entire market but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case!

Person_one

I'm with Wazzoo. I bought my first property in October and I did all the research myself, didn't even consider using a broker. I like to know exactly what's going on and would probably have double checked everything the broker said anyway so wouldn't have saved myself any work!

Plus, the deal we got was with a lender that doesn't work with brokers generally (co-op) and I doubt we'd have been offered anything any better.

Fire_Fox

Why don't you just buy 'What Mortgage?' magazine instead of trawling every website?