Broker yes or no?

sz1517

Just wanted to post my experience of my mortgage application for those that are questioning if they should or shouldn’t use a broker. 

I have previously organised my own mortgages, been simple and have had no issues. A friend of mine used a friend who was a broker and spoke very highly of her. We’ve renovated and now have some debt, affordable but still around £30k.

I decided to speak to the broker because I had a feeling the debts would go against us, THANK god I did!!!

HSBC declined our mortgage at the DIP stage, I would never have done anything to dispute it but the broker did. She was told we had a lot more debt than we did, I am an NHS worker and worked a ridiculous number of extra hours through COVID so have cleared a substantial amount of the debt which wasn’t showing on my credit report. She sent them up to date copies of the debt cleared and we received our official offer yesterday morning.

if anyone is questioning if they should use a broker because of any concerns I strongly recommend you do. 

ACG

Despite being a broker, I always try to remain impartial on here. 
I genuinely do believe a good broker can add value on most applications. However I do think there are times where you will get people who genuinely are straight forward (like those mythical people we read about in our exams) and have the time/confidence to do the research and application themselves. To be fair, I even come across people with adverse who do a better job on research than a bad broker would do. It is funny how good some people are at research when it is their own mortgage. 

I think the problem is that people see us as a kind of price comparison service... Any idiot can find the cheapest deal, you dont need a broker for that.  Some good examples I can think of where a broker comes into their own:
- Lender came back with a list of 6 items needed earlier this month - We call up, have a discussion and get that down to 2 things before going back to the customer. 
- We call the estate agent usually once the offer has been accepted and ask them to speak to us for any updates. My theory being estate agents apply pressure to buyers (especially first time buyers) where as with us they tend to treat us like a normal person and not a naughty school kid. We also keep them in the loop anyway just so they should not need to chase us. It keeps everything more relaxed. 
- You will inevitably have questions. I am doing my step brothers application at the minute and his mortgage offer was issued. Within 20 seconds he had about 5 questions... What happens next, who tells the solicitor, how long etc.

Good to hear you had a broker who fought your corner. 

HummingBird76

I've never used a broker, and I recently applied myself with Halifax and it all went relatively smoothly.  But I think I am a fairly straightforward case in that I'm not self employed, haven't been furloughed, no adverse credit etc.  BUT, if anything happened that changed that, I would definitely get a broker, I think from stories I have seen on here, and heard from friends, they can be pretty invaluable.

AnotherJoe

My daughter used a broker (who we found via personal recommendation) and he was awesome helping her and her husband with a complicated set up (self employed variable earnings, large loan from me).