Simple Mortgage Question

It sounds quite good, but what are the upfront charges versus the size of the mortgage? I have seen mortgage deals where you could either pay 1000 in "charges" and get rate x or pay 1500 and get rate x - something. Quite clearly, the charges are no such thing, they're just a way of frontloading interest onto the advance to make the deal feel cheaper to the punter.

Who else have you talked to? I have recently used London and Country and found them very good at ferreting out a good deal.

You are absolutely right. Thsi deal offered by the estate agent has the usual charges. No fee for the agent ( he gets commission from lender ). 445$ arrangemetn fee + 195 booking fee and free valuation. Thats it. But I just could not find a matching deal online. Speaking to many people I was led to believe estate agents do not give a good deal.

There are a lot of other factors needed, such as size of mortgage, amount of deposit, multiple of earnings etc for someone to know whats best. Are you definitely wanting a fixed rate?

Where all have you looked?

Here's a list of top deals from charcol online.

The top one there seems to be the Portman with 4.49% for 25 months. It does have a repayment charge, but this doesn't seem to go beyond the 25 month initial period. Whether it would be worth you starting again for a relatively small difference must be up to you.

Neb

I would check what rate you get "dumped" on after the initial "deal period" ends. Anything over base +1% and I would think twice, especially if they charge up front fees (and will not waive those charges).

I'm considering this deal from the Portman, which I found on

(a rebranded version of Charcol) I had a long chat with a broker the other day, who despite saying he could source any product on the market, insisted on pushing First Active mortgages at me. Presumably higher commission for him. I told him about the Portman deal and he said it had to be about the best going. However I am very much having second thoughts about fixed-rate mortgages at present, as most signs are that rates will go down. Depends whether you're willing to take the risk. My view is that the plethora of fixed-rate deals being launched at the moment is because the lenders do see rates falling in the near term, and want to lock as many people as possible into current rates.

One useful suggestion the broker made was to hang on for a few weeks as the mortgage lenders will all be working on their new deals during January and we should see some better deals coming out towards the end of the month.

As regards up-front charges, if you can afford to pay them up-front, simply amortise them over the expected term of the mortgage (25 months in the case of the Portman, assuming you will only maintain the mortgage for the discount period), add this to the monthly payment and then work out which is really cheapest. Often it's cheaper over the term to pay a high up-front cost, as the lenders just roll the costs into the monthly payments otherwise.

Jeremy