There are many different places to go for mortgage advice and it can be quite confusing, especially if you are doing it for the first time. It can be a good thing to talk to family and friends first of all – ask them which Bank or Building Society they have their mortgage with and how they found the service.
One of the most important things you can do, regardless of where you do it, is to make sure that you get advice before you start to seriously look for a property. You need to talk to someone about the costs involved and the amount of money that you are likely to be able to borrow before you go looking. There’s no point going to see properties that are £50,000 outside your price bracket, you’ll only be disappointed when you’re told that you won’t be able to borrow enough. Remember that nowadays most lenders don’t just look at your income when deciding how much to lend, they will also want to know about your regular outgoings as well as any other debt that you have, so it’s a good idea to make sure that your finances are in good order before starting to look for a new loan.
Before you speak to anyone you may want to get a general idea of what is around by looking at some comparison sites online. It makes sense to look at more than one site – all sites don’t carry the same information and so the results will be different from every site that you look at. This will take a bit of time but it will be worth it in the long run.
There are some basic questions that you will need to ask any lender or broker that you talk to. Firstly you need to make sure that the person you are talking to has the correct qualifications to advise you on the different types of loan available. You also need to find out how much the advice you are getting is going to cost you. More and more mortgage brokers are now charging a fee for giving advice. Most brokers will receive a fee from the lenders that they deal with, but they may charge you a fee on top of that commission. They should tell you how much that fee is likely to be and they should also tell you about any commission that they receive from lenders.
