Let mortgage advisor enter offers on our behalf?

moorsey

Hi all,

My girlfriend and I are hoping to put an offer in on our first house this week, all very exciting!

We have seen a couple of mortgage advisers, each at estate agents (Swetenhams and Reeds Rains), not sure if these are the best or not, but they were both offered when we was looking around for houses. The advice seemed pretty sound anyway, not we just have to pick which one to go with.....

Anyway, as part of the info they both went through when we had meetings with them, they both said that when we were ready to put an offer in on a property, get in touch with them first and they can negotiate on our behalf when putting in the offer etc. The Swetenhams guy also said his company owns Zoopla, so he had access to quite a bit of information which may help, i.e, offers that have been submitted previously, the sort of information the estate agents couldn't give out, but he could.

Now all of this might just be sales sort of talk, tempting us in. But I was just curious if anyone else had gone down this route, or just put offers in themselves. Would be interested to hear what the general thought is.

Cheers!

terakris

I would do it yourself (part of the fun!) - offer what you feel the house is worth, not what they think you can afford or they will simply tell you to start too high. as much as you dont want to play the estate agents game of bidding ping-pong, you will get dragged into it so just throw in a nice low offer and work from there.... you can easily increase it, but its harder to reduce your offers

betmunch

The reason they want to put the offers in for you is so that they are at the cutting edge of the process.

They will know that your offer is accepted before you do so can have everything arranged for you to sign up making it very difficult for you to say "I'll be going with another broker"

Also, they shouldnt be offering on a property available in the same Estate Agents as they are sitting as thats a conflict of interests.

Either way I would compare what they have offered you with what an independent Broker can offer, I suspect you will find their products do not match their eagerness!

moorsey

Thanks both for the replies.

I agree that I would prefer to do the offer myself, like you say, much fun.

House is on the market for a good price, I think..... Was going to start at about 10% off asking price and work up from there.

Good point betmunch. I was going to go with one of them for the mortgage, Swetenhams charge around £350 and Reeds Rains £400, agree that it would be worth checking with another advisor, although both of the above say they are independent to the actual estate agents in the room next door, was a bit dubious about that though.

The mortgage itself is not going to be much of an issue, as we are only borrowing a small amount, so %% differences doesn't make a great deal of difference in the long run.

L&C have been mentioned a lot, so might give them a try.

Cheers

herbiesjp

You should place any offers yourself.

Keep your cards close to your chest as they say.

So use a broker not connected in any way to the estate agent you are buying through.

And fingers crossed you will get yourself a good deal.

moorsey

Thanks!

Appreciate all the tips, going to see the Swetenhams guy tonight (the house we want is with Reed Rains, so no connection) for an updated mortgage chat, then will be placing an offer tomorrow.

Appreciate the tips