Advice on estate agent services

Faz

I've made an offer on a house as a first time buyer through an estate agent and the seller has accepted the offer.

I've had a 30 minute sit down with the agents to talk through the next steps etc. They are keen to offer a mortgage service where they will scan through various lenders and find me the best deal, at a 'lifetime' one-off charge of £350 (i.e. I can always get such advice when I come to buy another house, or re-mortgage etc).

I'm generally a pessimist and feel that even though they are acting as a broker, they will have a vested interest in getting me to buy a particular mortgage or from a certain lender.

They claim that by using them I can speed up the whole process and they understand all the complex issues surrounding eligibility etc (it's a joint mortgage application, one of us already is a home owner while the other is FTB) and know which lenders are quicker/better than others..

Any advice on how independent estate agent mortgage services are?

GMS

There are many threads on her regarding EA advisers.

At the end of the day the EA works for the vendor. You would be letting them know how much you could borrow which the EA may use to up your offer. Of course they may not.

All decent brokers understand the 'complex' issues.

If they try to force you to use their agents kindliy point out that they cannot do this. Of course if you are happy to use them then do so.

May well be better elsewhere though.

DVardysShadow

Estate Agents, IMO, should not offer any kind of service to buyers. That includes legal and financial services Agents work for sellers. Once they provide services to buyers, the conflicts of interest will work against both the buyer and the seller.

betmunch

It depends on the broker in the EA, if they are a seperate entity that simply takes referals from the EA then you should be fine.

At a guess from your post you are buying through the Connells/Sequence group. If this is true then the EA brokers sole job is to make money for the EA branch, this will mean the hard sell on insurance products and a very restricted ammount of mortgage lenders to choose from.

In fairness they do have the odd exclusive deal, and will be included in the new 100% mortgage trial by Aldermore. But, assuming you have a deposit, you will be much better served going to an independent Mortgage Broker.

Also ignor the lifetime fee, any broker will be happy to service you for your lifetime, and if you do decide to use them, tell them that the only thing stopping you is the fee and they should drop it after a bit of guff

Hope this helps

Faz

Thanks for all the help guys, useful info

betmunch wrote: »

It depends on the broker in the EA, if they are a seperate entity that simply takes referals from the EA then you should be fine.

At a guess from your post you are buying through the Connells/Sequence group. If this is true then the EA brokers sole job is to make money for the EA branch, this will mean the hard sell on insurance products and a very restricted ammount of mortgage lenders to choose from.

In fairness they do have the odd exclusive deal, and will be included in the new 100% mortgage trial by Aldermore. But, assuming you have a deposit, you will be much better served going to an independent Mortgage Broker.

Also ignor the lifetime fee, any broker will be happy to service you for your lifetime, and if you do decide to use them, tell them that the only thing stopping you is the fee and they should drop it after a bit of guff

Hope this helps

Connells group - spot on! You suggest they'll drop the £350 fee after some persuasion.. if so this is a great bit on insider info that'll help me out

To be honest, I'm usually happy to find best deals on my own (the internet is a great deal) so unless I can beat their best deal myself and they'll also drop the fee, then I'm happy for them to act as my broker.

I did find it unusual how they'll make a fat commission from the mortgage company but also want to charge the buyer £350...!