Time with First Direct current account to help get mortgage

JimmyTheWig

Hi,

Don't know if anyone will know this (especially as they don't deal with brokers) but thought I'd ask anyway.

Planning on switching current account away from First Direct. Reasonably happy with them, but all else being equal may as well have an account that pays rather than one that does nothing.

But, in three years time we'll be looking to remortgage. I'm aware that First Direct often have the best deals, but cherry pick the best applicants.
We'll be fine on LTV (around 42%, excluding HPI) and should be reasonable on affordability (3x gross salary) though having four children may hit us here.
I presume that having a FD current account may well help. Does the length of time that you've had that current account make any difference? E.g. if we switch now and then open a FD current account in two year's time will we be worse off (in terms of chances of getting a FD mortgage) than if we kept the account that's already been open a good few years.

The 30 pieces of silver for switching would soon be dwarfed by the savings we'd see on even a 0.1 percentage point reduction of interest rate on the mortgage. But equally if it makes no known difference then why not switch now.

Does anyone know?

Thanks,
Jim

Sedge123

We've had a current account and mortgage with first direct for ten years. Just buying a new house and despite knowing everything about us financially they couldn't offer us anything near what others could- and we are definitely nit over stretching ourselves.

JimmyTheWig

That's interesting, Sedge123. Maybe they're not as good as I've built them up to be in my mind...

libf

There's no point in having any kind of brand loyalty in banking. Just go with the best deal at the time. Most will let you take the current account at the same time as the mortgage in order to get the deals that are customer only anyway.