Avoid MortgagePitfalls
Do I need a broker?
The simple answer is No. This answer may come as a surprise from a website offering
a brokers service but that is the truth. However depending on your situation a broker
may well be worth their weight in gold.
YourMortgagePayments is all about trying to help reduce the terms of your
mortgage by offering advice on how to maximise your earnings and saving money, which
you can then use to pay off your mortgage. To this end getting the right mortgage
in the first place would seem to be a fundamentally crucial first step.
And remember if you are going to use a broker then register with us, request money
back on your mortgage and you will get part of the fees your broker earns back
for doing something that you were going to do anyway. Check how much by using the
calculator at the top of the page.
You will receive FREE financial advice, which you can then
choose to act upon or not. Nothing to lose and a percentage of your fees to gain..!
Read on for an explanation on how we can give you cash back on your mortgage.
Assessing your situation.
Some people are in the envious position of having an outstanding credit rating,
savings, low interest rate mortgages and bags of equity in their houses and so pretty
much have the pick of the market place. These people are in a position to pick and
choose the best deals and do not have much need for a broker and in fact will get
a much better deal with companies like HSBC, First Direct, One Account, etc who
sadly do not offer their mortgages through brokers.
The people in this position still need to be mortgage savvy and trawl through all
the deals to come up with the best mortgage, remember to always check the fees,
as sometimes a mortgage may appear to be a great deal but sometimes the low interest
rate is negated by excessive start up and exit fees.
If you have a good financial advisor (which we offer) you should be able to put
forward the deals you have found and you should receive an honest appraisal of whether
it is a good deal for you.
How does the broker work?
Brokers have access to about 85% of the mortgage marketplace and from this they
will find the best deal that suits your situation. They will take into account your
financial situation as a whole and through their experience match you to a mortgage
deal, this includes highly complex financial positions for example:
An existing customer used our service to navigate the mortgage market because they
had two investment properties and wished to retain their current home and purchase
a further property with out selling their existing home, this was not a simple case
but the broker did all the leg work by discussing the customer case direct with
the mortage companies underwriters and getting a view on how successful their application
would be thus not impacting the customer credit rating by having any mortgage applications
refused.
And this is one of the major benefits of utilising the services of a broker, getting
an up front view of the likely hood of success of an application as any applications
refusals are looked at very closely by any underwriter.
Sadly many lenders do not offer their mortgage deals to brokers as they want to
avoid the commission the broker charges, which is generally 0.2% - 0.3% of the mortgage
amount. It is part of this commission that we will pay back to you and it is important
to realise that this does not increase any fees incurred by you, it is simply a
commission that is already paid and will be paid to any other broker you may use.
Sometimes the best deal may not be the lowest interest rate, which may sound strange,
but the broker needs to assess lots of variables including your work, income, what
type of mortgage you are looking for, what is your appetite for risk, do you want
to make overpayments, do you want it fixed for 2 years, 5 years, etc. All of these
factors and more determine the best deal for you. For example some lenders do not
like self employed people, your broker will know this from years of experience and
will not try to match you to any of these lenders. If you had not used a broker
and approached these lenders, in all probability you would have your mortgage refused
and a note would go against your credit history informing other lenders of this,
too many refusals will be unfavourable to your quest for the best mortgage.
A broker’s job is to get it right first time!
What about the other 15% of the market place?
The remainder of the market place is a very interesting place, with opportunities
for offset mortgages, amongst others and if you know what you are doing could well
be the right place for you and we do encourage you to look here.