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Mortgage Brokers attached to Estate Agents

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i have started contacting estate agents re our search criteria and they keep offering the services of their own mortgage brokers.

at the moment i am looking at a bunch of brokers on line which charge no fees and a chap whose number we got from my husbands boss...he charges £500.

so either the two above or going with a mortgage broker attached to a estate agent.....i suppose i could try all three and see who comes up with the best deal?

any thoughts please very welcome i know nothing about brokers?

Comments

  • Yorkie1
    Yorkie1 Posts: 12,052 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    People tend to be advised against going with a mortgage broker in an EA:

    - they are often less experienced than independent ones
    - they generally do not have access to all products on the market
    - apparent or actual conflict of interest (possibility of the EA getting to know your exact financial position while you're still negotiating etc).

    Go to an independent mortgage broker, get a decision in principle from them, and then start looking for houses. Do not show the EA your DIP before your offer is accepted, because they'll know the max amount you may borrow and so encourage any seller to refuse lower offers on the grounds you can afford to up your offer.
  • dunstonh
    dunstonh Posts: 119,786 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    EA brokers tend to have a poor reputation (small independents aside). They tend to be tied to one insurance company, expensive, high pressure, often low skilled or operate on a limited panel.

    A local adviser of your choosing is usually the better option.
    I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.
  • That's very interesting to read as we are currently going through an EA Advisor and he's only just qualified. I'm wondering if the problems we are experiencing are down to this in some ways. I think I'm going to look into an IFA.
  • GMS
    GMS Posts: 5,388 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Why on earth would he tell you he has just qualified?


    Passing CeMAP doesn't make somebody an adviser. Learning how to package cases, understand lender criteria etc comes with time.


    Be wary. You MAY find applications submitted as per the sourcing system result rather than somebody knowing what they are doing.
    I am a Mortgage Adviser
    You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a mortgage adviser, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice.
  • My experience with a fee free commission based broker was poor.


    My case wasn't overly difficult but had a couple of potential issues which meant that a bit of careful selection was probably all that was needed. The approach of the fee free broker was to just submit my details to anyone and everyone, without thoroughly looking at my case or taking time to consider the lenders. I got rejected from the first application purely because he hadn't bothered to check the criteria properly - just put my details with the lender that came out best on his software. Would have been easy commission for him had it worked!


    I'm sure this is not the case with all fee free brokers, but in future I would definitely use someone who is incentivised to actually take some care and attention with my application.


    It's a big application and getting the wrong product could be very costly - if I were you I'd want to make sure that any broker I was using was solely working in my interest and not attached to the agent of my sellers.
  • amnblog
    amnblog Posts: 12,732 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    My experience with a fee free commission based broker was poor.


    My case wasn't overly difficult but had a couple of potential issues which meant that a bit of careful selection was probably all that was needed. The approach of the fee free broker was to just submit my details to anyone and everyone, without thoroughly looking at my case or taking time to consider the lenders. I got rejected from the first application purely because he hadn't bothered to check the criteria properly - just put my details with the lender that came out best on his software. Would have been easy commission for him had it worked!


    I'm sure this is not the case with all fee free brokers, but in future I would definitely use someone who is incentivised to actually take some care and attention with my application.


    It's a big application and getting the wrong product could be very costly - if I were you I'd want to make sure that any broker I was using was solely working in my interest and not attached to the agent of my sellers.

    That goes directly against the new rules.

    The broker should check that you meet criteria before putting your case to any Lenders.

    That said, we regularly get enquirers who have been rejected by one of more lenders because a previous broker has simply used a 'hit and hope' approach.
    I am a Mortgage Broker

    You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a Mortgage Broker, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice.
  • amnblog wrote: »
    That goes directly against the new rules.

    The broker should check that you meet criteria before putting your case to any Lenders.

    That said, we regularly get enquirers who have been rejected by one of more lenders because a previous broker has simply used a 'hit and hope' approach.

    Yeah, it was a bad experience all round. He had no clue and didn't listen. I had to repeatedly tell him we couldn't use HTB equity loan because the house is not new build, he refused to accept there were two types of HTB.

    I went to our first appointment armed with everything he could need, prints of credit reports, bank statements, payslips etc.

    I assumed, wrongly, that he would have at least read these before applying.

    When he came back with the suggestion of another lender at a much higher rate after the first one failed, his response to me saying it was too expensive was 'why don't you take a 35 year term instead and make it cheaper'.

    Absolute joker.
  • katejo
    katejo Posts: 4,278 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    In general I agree. It is the case however that an estate agent based broker got me my current mortgage deal of base rate plus 0.27 !
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