Steve Perriam

well i'm in the market to buy a house

so i need to know the best place to get a mortgage from. recommendations ?

anyone got any good / bad experiences.

wot should i be looking for ? not had a mortgage for about 5 years now so i'm in need of some help !

hoping to actively start looking next week when i have a day or 2 off but hoping you lot can give me some info the check out this week ?

thanks

steve

letdown

I ve heard good things about Charcoal. But Im a fan of just wandering up the High St and having a chat. Word of advice...dont borrow as much as they'll let you...they are chucking money at people again!!

SWRTWannabe

Have a sneaky look at some of the financial magazines in WH Smith - some of them do a monthly round up of who's got the best mortgage deals going at the time. Most handy

alistair

Money Extra or Charcol are pretty good places to look.

Before you start you need to decide between fixed rates, a discounted rate for a period of time or an all in one account (eg. Virgin one).

If you want fixed or discount, how long for ? Do you want any cash back up front ? Are you prepared to spend any time at their variable rate after the offer ? What is the redemption penalty if you want to move ?

All depends on personal circumstances and there's no universal right answer.

[Edited by alistair - 2/12/2002 8:32:37 AM]

[Edited by alistair - 2/12/2002 8:32:57 AM]

ScoobySnack

I've just got a new fixed mortgage, found a lot of help on...

This is Money

or

Motley Fool

J

dsmith

Steve

As above - spend some time on Moneyextra and charcol. Search with the various conditon etc turned on and off and get a feel for whats available. Watch for very high redemption penalties and overhanging penalties. There is no absolute right answer and someone will always have just found a better deal when you finally sign.

Its a very tight market, if something looks too good to be true, you havent found the catch yet

Deano

chiark

Being boring, I would recommend seeing an independent financial advisor.

Many of the estate agents have one up their sleeve that will find the best deal for your situation and not charge you for the service. They may offer insurance, or an endowment, or ... but you are not obliged to take it and they should not sell you what you do not want

If you go this route, ensure that they're regulated independent and IFA registered (or whatever). I've had two extremely helpful advisors who did a full financial background interview with me and then went on to find a storming mortgage deal, and one who was a completely useless *** who just wanted to sell me an endowment despite me wanting a no-risk mortgage. (He didn't do the interview, just got straight down to selling. Thinking back, I should have reported him to the IFA and he'd have been in serious doo-doo)

The IFA should show you any "kickback" that they make for recommending and signing you up to a particular mortgage.

Finally, if you get a quote for life assurance, do phone up a direct supplier and get a quote. Life assurance is cheap at the moment - so much so that 100k of cover taken out last year was less than 50k of cover taken out in 1997.

Also, Yorkshire Building Society turned out to be best for me and earned the IFA 200 quid.

chiark

Oh, and the first question IMHO is "repayment morgage" or "interest only".

People wanting to sell you an interest only mortgage (and therefore an investment to cover the capital) will show you graphs of how the capital doesn't shrink much for the firsts year of your mortgage and how, if the markets overperform, you could be left with £5,000 profit in 25 years time. They also whisper "oh, and you may need to pay over and above if the endowment doesn't make 7% a year".

Personally, I wouldn't touch an endowment with a very very long bargepole as I do not like risk when it comes to where I live. And if you do make a profit, what can you buy with your profit in 25 years time? Of course, you make like the frisson of risk

Nick.
(waffling, so shutting up now)

Steve Perriam

cheers guys, keep it coming. all v useful.

nick, that was gonna be my question.....wot type of mortgage !!

so probably a repayment one is the best long term these days ?

steve

Tiggs

IFA will get a proc fee so check that out (nothing for nothing)

if you go repayment you are throwing away the chance to invest into a repayment vehicle that may outperform your mortgage cost (4? 5? %)

pretty pesimistic to assume you wont get 5% growth on an investment over 25 years.

Tiggs

ps- my endowment needs 10% to achive target so either a) it will do this and no problem (current maturing endowments are all over 10%) or b) it will fall short and i'll have to make up the difference but the difference in 20 years will be much in real terms and i've had a real cheap investment in the mean time.

Tiggs

although if you get 0% growth cause the world falls apart then your FUBAR

TaviaRS

Oi Perriam - we don't pay you to surf all day! Read your mail!

Jon

carl

Ours is ISA-linked (like an endowment, but more tax efficient). We pay a fixed amount a month into the ISA. The shares it would have bought three years ago are now probably worth less than we paid for them, but OTOH for that fixed fee we're now buying a load more shares each month. Over 25 years I'm sure it will all work out.

Tiggs

carl,

if your isa underperforms the interest rate i would be amazed (over 25 years) so u should be laughing in 25 yrs time!

carl

It's a Legal & General one which, at the time we bought it (4 years ago), had the record for best performance. We're about to move house, so I'm assuming I can get an interest-only mortgage and then just phone up L&G to increase the payments on the ISA.

Tiggs

u might want to consider using a different fund for your new isa payments (can still be all at same provider) egggs and baskets etc

Steve Perriam

oi french, y not.....we pay u for surfing on SN ?

do some work and buy a real car

ta for the mail.

Goldfinger

An IFA is a good start! Money Extra gives good feedback as does www.moneysupermarket.co.uk - there are some good deals out there so do shop around (I work for a 'large mortgage bank' and I know any business will do at the mo!)

I actually ditched a staff rate mortgage last year for a Woolwich Open Plan mortgage which is excellent (see www.woolwich.co.uk for more details) - as my current account, savings and mortgage is managed together the savings you can make on your interest is bloody great

Happy hunting

Phil

MattN

don't bothe with charcoal or moneyextra or similar sites.

firstly I can't get the charcoal site to work cos it's pants.

secondly, nothing for nothing. If you type your details in to the above and think your going to get the best deal for 5 mins work then think again.

I simply went to lycos, and typed in building society. thousands of matches, so tkaes ages to look through them all, but so far I've found loads of mortgages which are cheaper than the best ones moneysupermarket etc came up with. All from BS 's I'd never heard of.

Like I say more hard work but I think i've found much better deals, beter equiped to go see an IFA now.

devils_ad69

Have a good look at www.virginone.com

Nimbus

This is very topical fo me right now. We are looking to move in a few months and are currently looking for a good mortgage. We've booked an appointment with the Braford and Bingley finacial advisor. Webiste says they look for the best deal from all BS/banks, not just their own (www.themarketplace.co.uk). We currently have an endowmnet which we took out with our first house about 10 years ago. I was looking only at repayments for the new one, but I'll be open minded.

Getting the house valued next week

carl

Our current mortgage is with B&B. Can't remember who the financial adviser was, but we spent 98% of the first year's ISA payments on paying him

Determined to get the best deal myself this time....

carl

A thought -- there's been a lot of people on here looking for mortgage advice recently. In view of the ridiculous fees that estate agents charge, do any of you want a 2-bed end-of-terrace in East Herts?

We could build up our own Scoobynet chain here (unlikely, I know)

Carl
Looking for 4-bed detached/semi in E.Herts -- 200-230k.

Nimbus

Selling: 3 bed detached in south leicestershire
Looking: 4/5 bed detached in south/east leicestershire

Steve Perriam

thanks for all the info.

anymore, keep it coming.

rjs1000

Intelligent finance have the cheapest & fairest at the moment - www.if.com

PS im my opinion dont get a fixed - if UK is thinking of joining Euro in next five years (lets face it is quite likely) - interest rates will have to go down much further....

Steve Perriam

are they really likely to go down that much more in the next few years if we join the Euro ?

they seem pretty low anyway at the moment ?

Tiggs

no they are not.

in fact they are more likley to rise during this yr.

we arent about to join the euro next week!!!

robski

Steve,

before looking decide do you want low or high risk? you have to start wif this or you will sink in all the options!

low=repayment fixed as long as possible
medium=go 50/50 (or similar) repayment/investment backed. This way you half the benefits/gains of interested rates/investment returns.
high=ISA backed/investment type stuff
really high risk = just pay interest and hope you win/inherit money to pay it off in 25 years time

the real cost of borrowing money today is less than half that of 1991. Could you afford to pay double if worst comes to worst!?
People quickly forget that we can have high rates, just because we dont now.

Remember the last time house prices were really high and then they crashed? People said "oooooo hose prices will never go really high again, too many people have been hurt". Whats house price inflation at the moment?

There is a link (although its not 100%) between interest rates and house prices, rates down influence prices up, rates up prices down.
Its a double whammy if you buy high and are not protected.

Also my last point (could ramble so will stop!) dont forget the difference that an increase in rates now is a higher % of what you actually pay than when rates are high. I will explain if this dun make sense.

robski

rjs1000

Lets play spot the trend:

Country Interest Rate

Japan 0% Approx
USA 2% Approx
Europe 3%
UK 4%