Getting a mortgage, whether it’s your first home, you’re moving house or just remortgaging, is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Generally, little is known of the mechanics behind your own mortgage affordability and the unknown leads some people to turn to their bank, as a trusted source, for guidance. The issue here is your own bank is a direct competitor with every other bank when it comes to securing your mortgage and they are not obliged to tell you if there is a better option elsewhere – why would they?
As a mortgage advisor we are able to look across an extensive panel of major high street lenders as well as some lenders you won’t even have access to direct. This, combined with our extensive knowledge of each lender’s criteria, means we can advise you on the best and cheapest mortgage available to you. We have pinpointed the following three main benefits of using a mortgage advisor over going direct to a bank.
• Time – Want to avoid waiting weeks for an appointment or sitting on hold for hours? We can offer next day appointments and we do all the leg work for you from submitting the application to chasing your bank for updates. We will be in regular contact to let you know of any developments towards getting your mortgage offer.
• Money – Want to ensure you’re getting a good deal? Our software allows us to look across an extensive panel of lenders to see the best mortgage out there over your chosen initial term. This is affected by the interest rate and crucially the level of fees that come with the product.
• Criteria – Want to know if you’re eligible for a specific mortgage? Many factors affect whether a bank will offer you a mortgage such as your type of employment, length of time employed, your level of income, type and location of property and many other factors. Without knowledge of criteria, you can end up applying for a mortgage you were never eligible for and this can adversely affect your credit score!
Picking the lowest interest rate off a price comparison site does not amount to receiving advice and will more than likely leave you wasting time and money, but we’ve covered that previously… Only a mortgage advisor can offer truly independent advice and here at Ferro we don’t believe in charging you anything as all mortgage advisors get a healthy commission payment from the bank when your mortgage completes – it’s worth a chat before you commit to paying hundreds of pounds to an advisor who may not have our creativity.
Talking to our clients, we have sometimes found they are led to believe they receive preferential treatment for arranging their mortgage with the bank they hold their current account with. Now unless you are holding hundreds of thousands of pounds with them, which for most of us is unfortunately not the case, then this is simply not true. The ‘preferential treatment’ will extend to requiring fewer bank statements or payslips as they can already view your finances – hardly worthwhile proceeding if there are cheaper alternatives elsewhere?
Finally, each bank or building society appoints a Business Development Manager (BDM) whose primary role is to work with mortgage advisors like ourselves to keep us updated with what they can offer and provide guidance on cases that are not straightforward. A BDM has the capability to push through a mortgage application which does not necessarily tick all their bank’s criteria requirements if they can convince the underwriter of the overall strength of the case. A BDM is our man or woman on the inside and this luxury is not afforded to those who approach a bank directly.
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