How many mortgage advisors did you see when you bought your first house?

kingstreet

Can we try to differentiate a little here.

I'm a mortgage broker. I've done this and nothing else for thirty years.

I don't have a restricted panel for mortgages, nor insurance.

I don't like estate agency advisors, those with limited panels and single insurance ties being described as brokers as I consider what I do to be different.

I don't see what we do as finding the 0.1% or 0.2% difference between different rates for the sub 60% borrower who is "rate chasing."

If you think that's what a broker does, you're pretty much mistaken although some brokers may be dragged into such beauty contests. Those who are "vanilla" will probably find their deal a bit cheaper online. Despite it costing a hell of a lot more for a lender to operate a branch network to attract business, somehow the 0.3% we get paid in commission is the straw that breaks the camel's back for direct-only lenders; unless they use mortgage rates to loss-lead to get the second-spend insurance products they sell, usually at a mark-up to the market in general.

A broker exists to find a home for difficult cases where the answer may not be readily available on every high street. As a newbuild specialist, I know which lenders will lend 85% on a newbuild flat and which ones will allow builder cash incentives, and which ones won't.

It's that kind of thing we're here for. In addition, I would say our turnaround time from application to offer is considerably lower than average when compared with those going direct. That's because we establish the right lender and the right supporting documents before we submit the case.

TBH we're plenty busy with the type of business we look to attract, so I'm happy to be completely honest about what we do and how/why we do it.

HappyMJ

I saw zero. I knew I wanted a flexible mortgage with underpay, overpay and redraw options and researched the market myself picking the Virgin One account. At the time it was a very good product. it now no longer is the best product but it's still OK and not worth switching away from.

I've seen mortgage advisers later as part of my mystery shopping work and they all say the product I'm on is still fine. I could save £5 a month by switching but for £5 a month it's just not worth the hassle.

sydenhambased

Less of the mortgage broker bashing please!

I'm ENTIRELY self employed, earned 39k last year but only 22k the year before.
My other half is also self employed, earned 17k last year but only 14k the year before.

Now lend me £195000 so I can buy a £260k property at 75% LTV.
Anyone?

Our broker knew exactly where to look, and I don't begrudge him a penny - he's had BOTH an up front fee AND commission.

AND he'll be creaming commission off the life assurance and income protection; which we couldn't (as self-employed musicians) have got WITHOUT a broker.

mymuk

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Come on brokers - defend yourself. What is the point of your service for a client that is able to use the internet properly and fill in forms with confidence?

I'd say they were very useful when there is anything out of the ordinary - my case is an "unusual" term of 16 years and involves moving two jobs between cities, a tight timescale, etc so I found the extra knowledge of the broker vital in terms of getting the right documentation submitted early and avoiding tempting offers from lenders that are likely to run into the sand later on because of policy they don't declare in the Lending Criteria (I'm looking at you Accord).

If I was 20 years younger and the case was more straightforward I'd have done direct.

cloo

I think I spoke to Charcol on my first place and that's all, but then it was a very small mortgage so it wasn't a big deal.

Kynthia

I had a good income, good credit and was going for a straightforward purchase. I went to a broker to see if they could better it. One could but I didn't like that lender as the SVR was bad and they were notorious for taking weeks to offer a mortgage and I wanted a quick purchase. Another broker was honest and said he could only match it so I was welcome to go direct. However I got on well with him, he seemed professional and helpful. So I went with him anyway as he sorted all the documentation, checked over my forms, liaised with the lender over my part gifted deposit and arranging the valuation, etc. He saved me time and effort, was reassurance, and helped the offer go through smoothly. I would always use a broker where possible.

jjlandlord

There's no need to see several advisors.

In any case, do not use the EA's.

akuma

I had been on this forum for about 6 months before we started viewing houses and took note of the consistently excellent advice being offered by 1 particular Mortgage broker on this site.

I contacted him via PM and hired him. My house purchase was EXTREMELY stressful and to be honest he was very supportive and provided me with a lot of guidance, probably above what you would expect of a Mortgage broker. The advice he gave me was directly responsible for me getting the house in the end as the house sale almost fell through a couple of times right when the mortgage offer was due to expire.

Advice he gave me which I passed on to my somewhat useless solicitor saved the house purchase and we were able to complete with literally minutes remaining before the mortgage expired.

Thanks again kingstreet

moneyistooshorttomention

None.


I bought a "Which" type magazine about it. Think it was called "Which Mortgage"?? and read my way through the options and decided for myself.

I made absolutely the right decision as to what to do myself, ie repayment mortgage (ie it was the 1980s = the era when people were trying to flog endowment mortgages as A Good Thing) and got a much better deal due to choosing a mortgage company that would take into account a couple of personal beneficial factors I had going for me.

It was a piece of cake to choose which type of mortgage and who with and I don't really understand why people go to mortgage brokers personally.

EDIT: and I re-mortgaged myself the same way (ie all my own research) at the time that mortgage companies were trying to persuade people to swop some years back and saved myself a few hundred £ in mortgage payments.

ACG

I am a broker, but im busy enough to not need to bang the broker drum - although I dont think the idea of this post was to decide on using a broker or not?

If you have found a good broker you like and trust - stick with them. I speak to plenty of people who have multiple brokers on the case, I always back out of that sort of thing for 2 reasons:
1) Im not about to waste my time doing work in the hope I get the deal.
2) I would hate another broker to step on my toes and so I give the same level of respect I would hope to get from other brokers.

As kingstreet says our job is not to find you a deal that saves you 0.1% - with all respect, any idiot can do that. Our job is to find a competitive deal for the customers circumstances, enure it fits as best we can and has the best possible chance of going through. Guide the applicant through the whole process etc etc. Some people want that service, others do not and are just as well applying directly if they wish.

Again as Kingstreet says, no "real" broker likes estate agent brokers from the major chains. They typically have sales targets and generally give the industry a bad name as they know they have an endless supply of customers they can coerce into using them.