Please help MSE test updated Ultimate Mortgage Calculator!

Former_MSE_Alana

Hi folks,

We have made some changes to the Ultimate Mortgage Calculator and we'd really appreciate it if anyone has 5 minutes to test it and let us know if you have an problems more specifically:

Is it easy to use?
What do you like/don't you like?
Any glitches?


http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-rate-calculator

Many thanks!

MSE Alana

getmore4less

issues with this "Ultimate" calculator

--
The repay from savings does not take into account overpayment that can be made without penalty which is critical to getting this sort of overpayment right.

--
Both the compare mortgages don't give the right information to work out which is best cheapest loan and can actualy be missleading.

for example
compare 2 mortgages
1. £100k @ 6%
2. £100k @ 5.5% with £2k fees

monthly payments(rounded down)
1. £644
2. £626

your calculator shows total cost over 2 years to be
1. £15,463
2. £15,033

So this suggests that option 2 is the cheaper over 2 years

But the outanding debts at year 2 are
1. £96,330.13
2. £97,979.25

So option one is still well ahead at 2 year.

By making the payments the same(a proper like for like comparison) say £645 then looking at the monthly outstanding ballance this shows the break even point to be 5years and 4 months for these 2 examples loans which is the bit of information that people really need to know.

----

the offset calculator fails to take account of the fact that the mortgage will be 100% offset at some point so the mortgage payment will then replace the savings that are offsetting.

Using a £125k loan with 3% and 3.02% rates
at the end of the term the offset savings will be around £47k not the £25k the calculator shows.

patrick0

With the overpayment option, I'd like to be able to specify how much I want to pay each month including the overpayment.

Instead of specifying £1000 overpayment, I'd like to specify £2000 monthly mortgage payment and see a graph of standard payments vs my £2000 payment.

KiKi

On the overpayment calculator, under 'Current Mortgage Debt' you need to specify 'Mortgage term REMAINING' so the two figures work together. I put in the total mortgage term with the remaining mortgage, so the calculations were wrong.

As soon as I saw the figures were wrong it was obvious that I'd put in the term incorrectly, but people new to mortgages won't necessarily know that.

HTH.
KiKi

getmore4less

KiKi wrote: »

On the overpayment calculator, under 'Current Mortgage Debt' you need to specify 'Mortgage term REMAINING' so the two figures work together. I put in the total mortgage term with the remaining mortgage, so the calculations were wrong.

As soon as I saw the figures were wrong it was obvious that I'd put in the term incorrectly, but people new to mortgages won't necessarily know that.

HTH.
KiKi

Also that is only to the year it should be at month resolution to be be of use to most people, not many will have exact years left.

MSE_Martin

Just to say please keep them coming - we will be reviewing them all on monday

getmore4less

Any progress or feedback on the feedback.