Choosing independent mortgage advice

Misha_2

Hi  there, are there any criteria to find best for the job independent mortgage advisor or they all would be about the same/ have access to to same financial products? 
Corporate vs individual advisor?
Thank you. 😊 

ACG

Generally speaking we all have access to about 99% of the same products. 

There are some brokers who call themselves whole of market but only have access to about 15 lenders (rather than about 80 with real whole of market brokers). Typically those brokers work for large corporate estate agents. 

As for who are the better brokers, my take is that people generally start as brokers for corporate estate agents or the big call centres and then go and set up/work with a smaller local firm. So you tend to find that the more experienced brokers are smaller local firms - but like everything there are exceptions. 

If you are straight forward, its unlikely to make a huge difference who you pick. I would say choose someone you feel comfortable with, it can be a stressful period so if they give you confidence and make you feel comfortable you probably wont go too far wrong. 

Nailer99

We’ve recently been using one of the large national fee-free brokers and overall the experience has been good. Except they have an annoying policy that they will not let you apply for more than one product at the same time, to the extent that they would cancel one mortgage offer before they let you apply for another one. 

This has been frustrating for us as the market is shifting so quickly and we are so close to the LTV threshold (we are 59.95%!) that every application is a gamble. 

So, if I were you I’d choose a broker who lets you apply for multiple products without cancelling offers you already have. 

dunstonh

The career path for most advisers is to start with larger regionals and nationals.   Better to make mistakes on their customers as you don't have to cover the bill yourself that way!   plus, you get spoon fed customers.

The larger the firm, the greater the systems and controls will be on their advisers.  They have to cater for the lowest common denominator.   So, most knowledgeable and experienced advisers will look to move on in time.     The regionals and nationals also tend to buy their software based on cost rather than quality.   The largest ones will also be able to handicap the software to reduce functionality.

Basically, the career path for most advisers is to start with the larger ones and then move to smaller independents or own firms.

As mentioned above, if your situation is easy, then it won't make a lot of difference.  However, time and again, we see people on this site who are pushing limits or have more complex situations report that they have been let down by the nationals/online/direct brokers.   

amnblog

Nailer99 said:

We’ve recently been using one of the large national fee-free brokers and overall the experience has been good. Except they have an annoying policy that they will not let you apply for more than one product at the same time, to the extent that they would cancel one mortgage offer before they let you apply for another one. 

This has been frustrating for us as the market is shifting so quickly and we are so close to the LTV threshold (we are 59.95%!) that every application is a gamble. 

So, if I were you I’d choose a broker who lets you apply for multiple products without cancelling offers you already have. 

Sorry Nailer, but I cannot agree here. Our poster should not be looking for this approach - I would consider applying for multiple product at one time a nonsense.

dunstonh

amnblog said:

Nailer99 said:

We’ve recently been using one of the large national fee-free brokers and overall the experience has been good. Except they have an annoying policy that they will not let you apply for more than one product at the same time, to the extent that they would cancel one mortgage offer before they let you apply for another one. 

This has been frustrating for us as the market is shifting so quickly and we are so close to the LTV threshold (we are 59.95%!) that every application is a gamble. 

So, if I were you I’d choose a broker who lets you apply for multiple products without cancelling offers you already have. 

Sorry Nailer, but I cannot agree here. Our poster should not be looking for this approach - I would consider applying for multiple product at one time a nonsense.

Can you imagine the client file on that?  And the how you handle the closure letters and regulatory requirements?

amnblog

dunstonh said:

amnblog said:

Nailer99 said:

We’ve recently been using one of the large national fee-free brokers and overall the experience has been good. Except they have an annoying policy that they will not let you apply for more than one product at the same time, to the extent that they would cancel one mortgage offer before they let you apply for another one. 

This has been frustrating for us as the market is shifting so quickly and we are so close to the LTV threshold (we are 59.95%!) that every application is a gamble. 

So, if I were you I’d choose a broker who lets you apply for multiple products without cancelling offers you already have. 

Sorry Nailer, but I cannot agree here. Our poster should not be looking for this approach - I would consider applying for multiple product at one time a nonsense.

Can you imagine the client file on that?  And the how you handle the closure letters and regulatory requirements?

If you were silly enough to do that I imagine the Client files would be a fiasco anyway.

Nailer99

amnblog said:

Nailer99 said:

We’ve recently been using one of the large national fee-free brokers and overall the experience has been good. Except they have an annoying policy that they will not let you apply for more than one product at the same time, to the extent that they would cancel one mortgage offer before they let you apply for another one. 

This has been frustrating for us as the market is shifting so quickly and we are so close to the LTV threshold (we are 59.95%!) that every application is a gamble. 

So, if I were you I’d choose a broker who lets you apply for multiple products without cancelling offers you already have. 

Sorry Nailer, but I cannot agree here. Our poster should not be looking for this approach - I would consider applying for multiple product at one time a nonsense.

I’m not talking about applying for multiple products at the same time. 

I’m talking about applying for a new mortgage with a different bank once you already have a mortgage offer. This has been necessary in recent months because the rates have been dropping in price so much, but each time it is a different bank which is offering the lowest rates. 

I don’t think it it reasonable to expect you to cancel one mortgage offer before you apply for the next one. The banks don’t make apply this rule if you apply direct, why should brokers?

Postik

Any thoughts on brokers who are free versus ones that charge?  Does there tend to be a significant difference?  I've always assumed if your circumstances are NOT straight forward then one that charges a fee is more likely to be thorough and come up with better options given the fact it will likely require more time and effort.

ACG

Fees do not really dictate the quality of the broker. There are good fee free ones and bad fee charging brokers. 
My personal view however was that when I started out, I did not charge a fee and I can not earn a wage, I had to take on a silly amount of work to earn a wage, which then meant my customers were getting poor service. 

I dont like giving a poor service so I changed to fee charging and everything came together where we took on less customers but offered better service. 

It might just be that I was not very well organised but strictly speaking there is no different between fee charging and fee free. 

dunstonh

Postik said:

Any thoughts on brokers who are free versus ones that charge?  Does there tend to be a significant difference?  I've always assumed if your circumstances are NOT straight forward then one that charges a fee is more likely to be thorough and come up with better options given the fact it will likely require more time and effort.

In our area, property values are lower and therefore mortgages are lower.  So, my mortgage brokers cannot rely alone on the proc fee from the lender.   They need to charge a fee.      If they were London or Home Counties based, they probably wouldn't need to charge a fee for that reason.