Mortgage broker recommendations

coronacaution

Hey, can I ask a silly question? At which point should I ask my broker to arrange a mortgage? I've found one off a recommendation and had a quick call. But I haven't put an offer on a house yet or sold ours, is it the right time to ask broker to start work?
Thanks! 

K_S

coronacaution said:

Hey, can I ask a silly question? At which point should I ask my broker to arrange a mortgage? I've found one off a recommendation and had a quick call. But I haven't put an offer on a house yet or sold ours, is it the right time to ask broker to start work?
Thanks! 

@coronacaution Assuming that your initial conversation with the broker has given you a realistic budget, once you have an offer accepted is when the broker can take the next steps.

ACG

Have they got a factfind from you? It might be worth making sure that is done, but they can only make an application once your offer has been accepted. 

lm1981

So to clarify - you would normally hire a broker once you have found the house you want to buy and have offer accepted?

also with the brokers who don’t charge a fee how do they make any money ? 

ACG

It is best to speak to a broker before you find a property so that they can check how much you can get and go over likely rates etc. They can also be on hand to help you during the process.

Mortgage lenders pay commission (this does not affect the rate you pay), but the commission is quite low so those who do not charge will need to write a lot more business in order to earn the same sort of income. There is nothing wrong with that, but I know I could not make it work and still offer the level of service I wanted to offer. 

K_S

lm1981 said:

So to clarify - you would normally hire a broker once you have found the house you want to buy and have offer accepted?
also with the brokers who don’t charge a fee how do they make any money ? 

@lm1981

- ideally you want to have talked to a broker and got a realistic idea of what you can borrow (and hence the max house price) before embarking on viewing or making an offer

- once you've had an offer accepted, that's when the broker can submit an actual application

- for your question about how brokers make money, I've copy pasted an earlier reply below. Hope that helps explain it.

K_S said:

lm1981 said:

I am going to need to approach a mortgage broker as my circumstances aren’t quite straight forward - do you normally pay a broker a one off fee or do they get commission on referrals from banks etc 

I am trying to keep costs down , I could prob go out to various lenders myself but a broker will be better placed I think to advise 

@lm1981
All brokers will get what is known as a proc-fee (commission) from the lender which generally speaking is around 0.3-0.4% of the loan amount for mainstream residential mortgages.
On top of the proc-fee, some brokers will charge a fee, some will not and some will do so depending on the case specifics.
The smaller the loan or more complex the case, the more likely it is that the broker will charge a fee.