ftb-help!

onestepatatime_4

hello,

sorry if these are all stupid questions stil very new to this!

we have just started to look at houses in our area and have seen one we like at £140000. Think we could get it for less (its been on the market a long time) but assume we should work on this figure?

deposit is (blush) bank of mum & dad, were working on 10% so 90% ltv

so we need to get a mortgage agreement in principle. How does this work, is it just a normal application or is there a different process? Do we have any commitment once we have the agreement in principle or could we still go elsewhere for the mortgage??

we are looking at fixed rate, largely because the idea of
my biggest outlay suddenly trebling with no control
terrifies me. Most of the better deals are (logically) shorter fixes, but i don't understand what happens when the lets say 2 yr fix ends, would we be able to fix
it again? Or would we then be stuck on a standard variable rate?

is fixing for 2 years sensible? Or am i just paranoid?
We won't be completely stretching but a mortgage is likely to be £200+ more than we currently pay in rent
each month, so big jumps again would start to hurt!

ive been using the fsa tables at moneymadeclear.com and britannia/co-op and the post office seem to come
out top (lowest apr, lowest monthly payments),
shouldwe focus on these? Or do we need to look for a
broker and get some proffessional advice?

how do we know a fees free broker won't just recommend the mortgage that gets them the most commission?

thanks in advance for any help you can give!

sorry