In-house mortgage advisor - avoid like the plague?

Pigeoiz

As part of going into estate agents for viewings I've been directed to their in-house mortgage advisors under the guise of a "help to find" service. The first had a very limited selection and raised much suspicion, however the second was easy to talk to, very open, ticked all Martin's boxes of what to ask, and was generally really helpful and reassuring. Unlike the first he is independent of the agency (part of the mortgage advice bureau network).

I've since contacted a few others over the phone to try and get someone more independent but I'm starting to gravitate towards the second in-house advisor just because he was so so helpful and felt like someone who could hold my hand during my first house buying experience.

My only reservation is that he's sat in the back of an estate agents office claiming independence. Does anyone have any experience with independent in-house advisors? I feel like you should never go to people recommended by those involved in the process, and am trying to be cynical but I can't really think of any reason not to use this guy to help me out otherwise.

Cheers

Baby_Angel

Back in 2013 we went through an estate agent recommended Mortgage Broker. However the house we ended up buying was through another estate agent. We kept the initial broker and she was an independent all of market broker and got us a good mortgage and helped us throughout the process. We were FTB and needed all the help. Our experience was good.

MortgageMamma

You tend to find the estate agency brokers are the least experienced as they work much harder, under very stressful conditions for less money. And nobody in their right mind would do that unless they had to. I know, I did it in 2006 for 12 months!

Mortgage Advice Bureau take on self employed and sometimes employed advisers and situate them in estate agencies. They are what we call a mortgage network, a community of many advisers all trading independently under a brand name. That said, MAB do usually only take good quality staff and the can occasionally have exclusive deals that are tailored especially for their advisers.

If your purchase is quite straightforward with no major hurdles/obstacles there is no reason why you shouldn't use the broker you felt comfortable with. Rapport is an important aspect in the advice process. I've been doing the job for a long time and when you have rapport with a client they are a joy to advise and the process is less stressful for all involved. When the rapport is not there you tend to find trust is not there, and us advisers have to work hard to build trust. It takes some clients longer than others to trust, but trust you must!

Go with your gut feeling, the only bit of advice I can give you other than that is to make sure you are being properly advised - don't accept vague answers, if there is anything that you don't understand or are not sure about be certain to ask questions and keep asking until you are satisfied. This is likely to be the biggest financial commitment of your life, so you need to go into it fully informed.

ACG

MAB in house brokers do tend to be somewhere in the middle.

Realistically, the broker you are speaking to is sat in the same office as the agents. It is inevitable they are going to discuss cases and yours could be one of them. Ultimately the broker is relying on leads from the agent so they are only going to be a certain level of impartial.

That being said, you have 2 months of potential stress and worry. If you have found someone you are comfortable with them, it could be worth sticking with them - I only say that as they are not employed directly by the agents.

Pigeoiz

Thanks all for your inputs, that's given me a bit more insight and some food for thought.

robatwork

Sometimes the close proximity of estate agent to broker can be really helpful to the process, and if they are giving you a good mortgage (you have checked some yourself, haven't you?) then I would definitely not go with the usual advice to avoid them.

My buyers had an awful experience with their first independent broker, but the (almost) independent working at my EA did a great job.

Harvic

We used a MAB in-house broker based in an estate agent (we bought through another EA in the end for our first property). Had a very good rapport and probably spent 2-3 hours going through a lot of basics about the different type of mortgage and protection. They searched the whole market for mortgages. I believe there was a £100 fee that was waived if you went through them for mortgage offer.



In his case, the overall commission was quite low on the product, but they made a lot more on the protection products which were a limited offering. They were very open about this and went as far to say don't buy the life insurance through him as we could get it for a quarter of the price elsewhere! I think you just have to be careful about what they offer and be aware of the limitations of what they offer.