Natwest vs First Direct Mortgage

leelovesdeals

Hi,

My girlfriend and I area about to buy our first home - £250k with £25k deposit. Our joint income is 58.5k gross.

I've been looking around at 5 year deals and currently Natwest and First Direct are coming out on top (we both bank with Natwest currently for our joint account)

First Direct offers a slightly better deal of 4.59% vs Natwest's 4.79%

Just wondered what people's experiences of First Direct as a mortgage provider were. I've read that one of the conditions is that you can't rent out your house (which I doubt we'd do but good to have the option) and also it seems that you can't move house within the 5 years as you need to take out an entirely new mortgage and incur early repayment fees.

Just need a bit of guidance really!

Wh05apk

Personally if you are looking for a 90% deal I would avoid 5 year fixes, you are tying yourself into a high rate now, possibly take a 2 year deal, with a view to re-mortgaging in 2 years by which time you could be down to 85% or even 80% LTV, which should attract lower rates.

Can't speak about first direct, but if the deal is not portable, then I would be cautious of committing yourself for 5 years, a lot can happen in that time.

leelovesdeals

Thanks for the advice. We went for a 2 year deal in the end as does make sense to remortgage in 2 years when out LTV will be lower. Although any rise in interest rates between now and then might wipe out those savings!

kingstreet

Hopefully, in the interim there has been no change in your circumstances preventing you remortgaging. if there has you're then stuck with what customer retention products your existing lender is offering, if any...

leelovesdeals

We're now preparing to remortgage. Thanks for the advise Wh05apk as we're now looking at a 70% LTV ratio. We're once again looking between staying with Natwest or going with First Direct and this time are considering 5 year deals.

First Direct is slightly lower rate but I run my own business so not sure how First Direct will take that. If we stick with Natwest we won't have to worry about submitting new income/expenditure details. We're likely to still pay for a valuation as their index valuation is below what other similar houses nearby have sold for in the last couple of months.

Any advice once again gratefully received! Thanks

Landofwood

leelovesdeals wrote: »

We're now preparing to remortgage. Thanks for the advise Wh05apk as we're now looking at a 70% LTV ratio. We're once again looking between staying with Natwest or going with First Direct and this time are considering 5 year deals.

First Direct is slightly lower rate but I run my own business so not sure how First Direct will take that. If we stick with Natwest we won't have to worry about submitting new income/expenditure details. We're likely to still pay for a valuation as their index valuation is below what other similar houses nearby have sold for in the last couple of months.

Any advice once again gratefully received! Thanks

Have you logged into your online Natwest account? You should be able to switch with a few clicks online.

Let us know what rates you have access to.

leelovesdeals

On a 5 year fix Natwest offered 3.29 at 75% LTV. They wanted £350 to revalue the house so we've currently applying to HSBC as their rates were the best for a 5 year fee-free fix and they've valued the house slightly higher so we're now at close to 60% LTV.