First time buyer/low LTV advice
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theallam
Forumite 5 posts
First time buyer in the UK here. I've found a nice house in my hometown, offer's been accepted, and I only need a mortgage of 35k (15% of the property's value.) Currently in the shopping around stage. As I know I'm in quite a rare position, I just wondered if anyone could offer their 2 cents on a few things...
-Is it worth paying for a mortgage broker? If I was borrowing a large LTV I wouldn't dare go without independent professional advice, but nowadays with online resources I'm wondering if it might not be necessary in my situation.
-Any insights on the best lenders to go with? Heard good things about Nationwide and Halifax.
-Is it better to go with a shorter fixed rate over a 10 year one? Especially with Brexit to look forward to soon...
Any help would be much appreciated 🙂
-Is it worth paying for a mortgage broker? If I was borrowing a large LTV I wouldn't dare go without independent professional advice, but nowadays with online resources I'm wondering if it might not be necessary in my situation.
-Any insights on the best lenders to go with? Heard good things about Nationwide and Halifax.
-Is it better to go with a shorter fixed rate over a 10 year one? Especially with Brexit to look forward to soon...
Any help would be much appreciated 🙂
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You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a Mortgage Broker, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice.
In your position I would opt for a long as fix as I could, given a) rates have never been lower and b) there is a lot of short-term uncertainty on the horizon.
Given the low value of the mortgage could you get a ten-year duration and a ten year fix? then you would know your entire costs and have no risk on that payment rising.
Any other debts?
Straightforward income?
Any bad credit or quirks for you or the property?
As another poster said, Nationwide/Halifax are not exactly leading the way on cheapest deals at the moment. They can be flexible for certain things, but if you do not need flexible then you should be chasing the deal (not the rate).
As for whether you should use a broker, it depends what you want. We are not a price comparison service and I suspect most brokers are going to want paying on a deal that size. A brokers job is to take it all out of your hands and deal with everything.
If you have no complications then I would say do it yourself if you feel confident enough and have the time to.
Gonna go for 20 years, hopefully I can pay it off a bit earlier. But I'm thinking 10 years is a long time to fix for, my situation could of course change in terms of work and family.
My credit's fine, no debt, and the house seems in very good condition. Income is consistent.
Thanks, that's a great point. The price comparisons I've done definitely back that up.
With such a small mortgage, it would take a massive rise in rates to make any real difference. For example 2.5% to 4% is just £27 a month more. If the OP cant afford that dont buy a house.
And finally, a 10 year fix is going to likely land them with a disproportionately large ERC for little real gain.
One of the lenders was looking at lending to Ltd Company BTLs (which they do not currently do), another was looking to get in to commercial lending... Although 3 days later I receive and email from one of those lenders where they had knocked around 0.1-0.2% of 2 of their deals.
I do get the impression rates are probably as low as they will go with maybe the odd tweak here and there (up and down) depending on how business volumes dictate.