New mortgage required, who to obtain it from?

What’s the pros & cons of:

Online comparison websites

Free independent financial advisor

Mortgage broker with a fee

It’s been a while, any tips would be much appreciated.

If you have a normal, PAYE employed, regular salary each month job, and you’re buying a normal house, there’s no reason you can’t do it yourself via a comparison website. It’s just an exercise in form filling and paperwork providing.

@IHN Yeah I know that, but are there any advantages of using the other two?

Mortgage broker might have offers not open to the websites, free IFA tends to get their fees as part of the deal, you can give them a shout, but just work out what you are content to pay as a fee and monthly over the term, noting that rates might be coming down soon, but not soon enough for current offers unfortunately.

We’re doing ours just now, just not long enough to get any reductions that might be coming, so just working out the best offer to cover us, which is another 5 years at fixed so we have a known outgoing.

Plenty of mortgage brokers without a fee, who at a minimum (if they’re any good) can save you lots of website trawling and form filling.

I can recommend one if helpful?

Mortgage broker without a fee found me better deal than I was able to get direct

are there any advantages of using the other two?

Not especially

Mortgage broker might have offers not open to the websites

Might is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence

Plenty of mortgage brokers without a fee, who at a minimum (if they’re any good) can save you lots of website trawling and form filling.

I’m not convinced. The lender ultimately needs the information, they either get it directly from you, or from you via the broker. With a comparison site you pretty much just enter it all once.

Last mortgage I got was through a broker that ended up a complete waste of their & my time, as there was slightly special circumstances (only reason I went with a broker) turns out the mortgage they selected wouldn’t cover those circumstances anyway… guess I just got a crap broker.

I’ve had good good experiences with a broker in the past, yes they take a fee but it saves hassle and is usually peanuts compared to the total being borrowed

We used Fluent last time.   No fee, £350 cashback (of which they took £80 for outsourced legal fees) All done via an app and a couple of phone calls.  We received the same rate that Barclays were offering on their website, but without the £1000 arrangement fee.  £1280 better off and organised in 6 weeks.

Most (all?) brokers get their fee from the mortgage provider. You shouldn’t need to pay them anything directly.

Having recently moved, I used a broker and I think it was a lot less hassle than dealing with providers directly. We were able to switch potential provider very quickly when a new offer was announced. In the end we got a mortgage from my own bank. I didn’t deal with my bank though, still used the broker. This was because the broker did the entire application in about an hour on the day the new deal was announced. My bank wanted me to setup an appointment, come in blah, blah, blah. I think there would have been a real chance of missing out on the deal doing it that way.

It’s possible I’ve missed better options elsewhere (although comparison sites have never shown this), but staying with our existing provider we’ve always been offered a good deal and it’s been easy to move from mortgage to mortgage with them. Hopefully the next re-mortgage will be the penultimate fixed rate before it’s all done, woo!

I’ve just got a new mortgage…been renting for a few years after a divorce. (my credit rating with Experian is excellent, thats the only credit rating company I had used….I didn’t know at the time but my credit rating with another lender was only average)

Did the comparison sites, got my mortage in principle offer. All looked nice and easy, until they do further checks. When I got divorced in 2021 I left the country for about 18 months. For this period of time I have no electoral role details – I wasn’t living here so I didn’t even think it was something I needed. No mortgage company would offer me a mortgage…..

Called a mortgage broker, explained the situation and within a day I had a new mortgage offer. He new what vendors used the electoral role is an important factor and what didn’t. I also have never had a credit card, my car was purchased on PCP Ballon but paid off, so currently no debt andnever missed or late with a payment)

Anyway, for me in my fairly unique situation, mortgage broker got me the mortgage, with a large mortgage provider and at the same rate as the other providers I had found through the comparison sites. His fee was £380, which I’ll be honest was a bargain. I had been on the phone to banks and mortgage providers for a few days and was getting stressed – I had had an offer accepted and didn’t want to miss out.

I think you have to be careful with the just use a webpage to decide for you.

They dont always have the best deals, and they dont tell you the lending criteria of the organisation.

Case in point, we did this and applied for a mortgage with HSBC direct. We were turned down despite both stable well paid jobs for years in the NHS and no risk factors.

Turns out that because we had moved house in the least 5 years we would not get the rate they stipulated.

However that did mean we had gone through 1 credit check.

We then went through our IFA who got us the same deal with a different lender where, with the same rates that we couldnt find online.

But then not all IFAs are created equal either.