Flexible Mortgage rates

Missy79

Hi all
Hoping to call on the collective knowledge of MSE - I want a flexible mortgage, I only need to borrow £20-£25K, does anyone have any recommendations (looking at APR's mainly but will check out anything)? I've been on a couple of comparison sites but I don't need or want anyone to call me back! which they all want to do!

Thanks in advance:D

UK007BullDog

With that I would check out the high street lenders as the amount is very little for a regular mortgage. Brokers will probably charge you as the commission for a mortgage is so small it is not worth their time. I would also ask the lender you bank with. Most high street banks/building societies have some sort of flexible mortgage they could offer you.

Martinslovechild

In all honesty, you may struggle to find a mortgage lender which offers mortgage advances for such small sums of money.

A lot of lenders now have a £50K minimum and although you may find a few offering £25K minimum, it's unlikely that you'll find many (if any) offering much less.

The only way that I can see round this is to request to borrow their minimum, then pay the difference between what they give you and what you require back into your offset fund.

e.g. let's assume the minimum for the new lender is £50K.
You request £50K, explaining to them that you need the £25-£30K of this for improvements (as your current lender's settlement is obviously in the region of £20-£25K).
When the advance goes through, you pay the £25-£30K right back into your offset fund to reduce your outstanding debt back to £20-£25K.

One thing to bear in mind is that there is normally a five-year minimum term with a lot of offset mortgages, so again you'll need to check that the terms of the agreement allow you to repay it in less than 5 years and ensure that you occur no redemption penalties.

UK007BullDog

Martin just hit the nail on the head. Actually if you look for a flexible mortgage and an offset facility to place the extra amount in you might want to look at Woolwich flexible offset. The rate is not the absolute best but competitive and might just do everything you want.

Missy79

Thanks for that, the woolwich one doesn't look too bad actually. What do you think of the ING flexible mortgage? the APR looks to be 5.3% and they have a minimum of £25K from what I can see on the site unless i'm missing something. I know it's a small amount so it can be tricky. (only need that as we have right to buy so get a £22K discount plus we have a hefty deposit)
We also thought of just repaying anything extra we have to borrow due to minimum rates or even trying to find high interest savings for it (hmm tax issues complicated there though I think)

Hefty application fee on that Woolwich mortgage though.