Mortgage advice

[nui-harp]

Been thinkin recently about gettin my own place, house or apartment, but dont know what the best line to go is.....as in who's best to go to for advice or who's best to get a mortgage from....ulster bank, ebs, etc. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated!:)

[ramsfan]

i have been with iib (not so great), changed to ulster bank and found them easy to deal with , dodgy enough time as interest rates are high but are goin to start comin down. prob better to go with variable as a fixed will be for 2 years and you could get stung if rates drop

[ramsfan]

on a seperate note for people with existing mortgages alot of guys i work with have variable mortgages and on advice they rang there mortgage company and said they were thinking of switching mortgage companies and said is there anything more the could do for them and the mortgage company not wanting to loose there business cut there mortgage interst rate by 0.25%
reason being they dont always pass on rate drops so they are catching you so only when you question them will they give a little back

[KevB76]

It depends how favourable your job/finances etc look to the bank. The mainstream banks are very conservative.

If you're borderline on the affordability, or theres something slightly irregular about your application or your status or whatever, then use a mortgage broker, they will be able to sort you out much more easily (usually with IIB !).

[paul_oshea]

ya id agree with kev above, but the problem with a broker is obviously you will get charged a fee, and prolly the interest rate wont be as good.

[KevB76]

ya id agree with kev above, but the problem with a broker is obviously you will get charged a fee, and prolly the interest rate wont be as good.

Not necessarily. The broker I used didnt charge (I think he got a commission from the bank) and the rate I got was the best on the market at the time.

[strangeirish]

Brokers in general are wholesalers and can do a lot of the leg work for you, including shopping for the best deal for your situation. I use the term 'best deal', as the lowest rate does not always equate to the best deal. If you are going to use a broker, it would be in your best interests to get a referral or references. Fee's can normally be negotiated, in that you can pay a commission up front or, in return for a slightly higher rate, the lender can pay the commission. A lot of the time, a broker can beat a main street banks offer. Either way, shop around.

[Dodge]

WOuldn't hurt to make 5/6 phonecalls on your own to the main banks too. PTSB has some good info on their website which will tell you if you're likely to approved and what you need to do

[gordongekko]

Have a look at www.askaboutmoney.com (http://www.askaboutmoney.com) its an irish site and if you post the question there you should get an answer

gg

[pete]

ya id agree with kev above, but the problem with a broker is obviously you will get charged a fee, and prolly the interest rate wont be as good.

Brokers very rarely charge a fee to the lender. I did not use one when getting mortgage due to time issues.

Best advice I could give is to calculate how much you can afford to repay as well as how much banks will give you before you look at property.

A broker would be handy way of getting idea of how much money banks will lend you - get them to do the leg work.

[nui-harp]

much appreciated guys!

[beautifulrock]

ya id agree with kev above, but the problem with a broker is obviously you will get charged a fee, and prolly the interest rate wont be as good.

as above they rarely charge a fee, they earn from the mortgage lender and they often have special rate deals that the public dont get direct. Paul you spoofing again:eek:

[Macy]

Try EBS as well. We found them the best to deal with, compared to the others didn't try the hard sell on insurance products, and didn't try and add to what we were borrowing. I wasn't particularly tied on going with a mutual, but the difference in emphasis was very stark. When our fixed rate is up we will shop around, but I'd be loath to leave them tbh. Also they are open on a Saturday morning which was/is handy for us.

We didn't go to a broker, we shopped around ourselves. Most of the banks were fine to deal with, however, we had issues with First Active, and PTSB (who tried to sell us all kinds of insurance products; move money from credit union loans into a loan from them; talked us in to going for a bigger mortgage approval and then wouldn't sanction what we originally asked for).

[paul_oshea]

Brokers very rarely charge a fee to the lender. I did not use one when getting mortgage due to time issues.

Maybe at home they dont but over here most of them do. I'm pretty sure mates got charged at home as well....they take a percentage of the mortgage from the mortgage lender and they charge the you a one-time fee also, like 250 or 500, i beleive £500 is the standard charge over here.


as above they rarely charge a fee, they earn from the mortgage lender and they often have special rate deals that the public dont get direct. Paul you spoofing again

i checked out a few sites to check the validity of this statement, but no moneysavingexpert.com recommends 3 lenders that do for free i.e. dont charge a fee. Thats 3 lenders out of id say somewhere between 20 - 50 lenders in england. Maybe youre the one spoofing rock ;)

I have a few friends in property development over here, who've been round the block. If you want to get as much as possible a broker is the way to go, but you are going to be charged, if you just want the normal 4 times yer salary or whatever then you can prolly use the brokes/banks that dont charge a fee. Obviouslly at home its different.

[beautifulrock]

i checked out a few sites to check the validity of this statement, but no moneysavingexpert.com recommends 3 lenders that do for free i.e. dont charge a fee. Thats 3 lenders out of id say somewhere between 20 - 50 lenders in england. Maybe youre the one spoofing rock ;)

I.

well check again and get on to the Charcol website, most lenders charge an arrangement fee, HBOS are charging £1,999 per fixed rate mortgage together with significant ERFs. POS you know it and I know it you are a chancer on this site, entertaining some of the time but a spoofer none the less :)

[noby]

Paul, a lot of brokers here don't charge you a fee (the borrower, not the lender), they get commission from the lender/bank. Now obviously the bank is going to factor this into your mortgage, but at least you don't stump up a lump sum to someone.
As others have said, doing the donkey work yourself avoids these brokers altogether, although the figures being thrown at you from everyone can be baffling.

[paul_oshea]

well check again and get on to the Charcol website, most lenders charge an arrangement fee, HBOS are charging £1,999 per fixed rate mortgage together with significant ERFs. POS you know it and I know it you are a chancer on this site, entertaining some of the time but a spoofer none the less

HBOS aren't a broker rock. I am on about a broker not lenders....I'm assuming you know the difference. I went to a lender, I couldn't get enough as they are cagey lending ( give you at most 3.5 - 4 ), but as soon as I went to a broker, believe it or not I was able get £100k more ( no spoofing as you call it ), the interest rate was a joke mind, but still and ALL these brokers charged. The only ones i know taht dont charge a fee are: London & Country and MoneyBackMortgages and charcoal, and alot of these are only free for over the phone service, they charge if you meet in person...... But even one of those only get you 50% back and id be surprised if they can get you the same amount of money as a the brokers that charge, just assuming, I dont actually know. BUt id say that those that charge do prolly work a bit harder and "Pull a few more strings" to get what you want.

Noby, ya I just assumed Ireland was like here. I did go to Irish life once and another crowd at home but they are all lenders and no they didnt charge a fee, nor a higher lending fee either. Do they have higher lending fees at home ( MIG fees they are called too )?

[beautifulrock]

HBOS aren't a broker rock. I am on about a broker not lenders....I'm assuming you know the difference. I went to a lender, I couldn't get enough as they are cagey lending ( give you at most 3.5 - 4 ), but as soon as I went to a broker, believe it or not I was able get £100k more ( no spoofing as you call it ), the interest rate was a joke mind, but still and ALL these brokers charged. The only ones i know taht dont charge a fee are: London & Country and MoneyBackMortgages and charcoal, and alot of these are only free for over the phone service, they charge if you meet in person...... But even one of those only get you 50% back and id be surprised if they can get you the same amount of money as a the brokers that charge, just assuming, I dont actually know. BUt id say that those that charge do prolly work a bit harder and "Pull a few more strings" to get what you want.

Noby, ya I just assumed Ireland was like here. I did go to Irish life once and another crowd at home but they are all lenders and no they didnt charge a fee, nor a higher lending fee either. Do they have higher lending fees at home ( MIG fees they are called too )?

I know HBOS are a lender just pointing out the fee's they charge as opposed to the fact that brokers do/dont charge. I certainly agree that brokers know how to "bend" the rules and they will certainly know the market well enough to know the specialist lenders i.e sub prime, self cert, BTL friendly lenders etc. But you must have also seen that brokers do get "special" deals from lenders so it is often worth checking them out for that alone.

[Ash]

We went with EBS and found them good to deal with. As Macy said, they didnt
try to give us anything more than we actually wanted and there was no bull
with them.

[paul_oshea]

so whats the most you can get with a lender in ireland then?! single person and two people i mean.

[noby]

Pick a number, and double it, it seems.

[paul_oshea]

hmmm just like here so. i thought it was stricter at home!

[noby]

It used to be, then it wasn't, and now it probably will again.

[beautifulrock]

It used to be, then it wasn't, and now it probably will again.

I agree Noby, bound to get stricter. In the UK most lenders have moved to a payment to income ratio calculation as a measure of what they will lend to you rather than the old salary by 3 or 3.5 or whatever number worked for them.

[Macy]

I agree Noby, bound to get stricter. In the UK most lenders have moved to a payment to income ratio calculation as a measure of what they will lend to you rather than the old salary by 3 or 3.5 or whatever number worked for them.
It's been payment to income ratio here for a while. It is supposed to take into account all loans, however, at the height of the boom there were blind eye's turned to other loans (one of them even said to us it was unfortunate that our credit union subs appeared on our payslips!).

[paul_oshea]

well they are still doing both over here, one is sorta done after the other, when i went to the banks it was a clear case of salary x 4 or whatever, but when i checked out a few brokers it was NET Income to Payment ratio, that they worked off, so bonuses etc could be used if provided for the previous year. Basically assuming you had no other loans you could get all minus bills/food/travel which is a joke.

[OneRedArmy]

I would imagine the reason brokers in the UK now charge is because of the changes introduced under depolarisation.

Re loans amounts, has tightened up in the last 6 months and as someone has said is now generally based off an affordability rather than an income measure. Eg regardless of what you earn if you have learge car loans, credit card balances etc, you won't be able to borrow as much.

It is difficult for lenders to check if you are being honest and there's no doubt brokers in particular preyed upon this during the boom, but the ICB is collecting more and more info and moving more towards the UK model where credit searches turn up everything you've ever done and as arrears increase (which they are) banks have incentives to properly verify affordability.

[pete]

I started with EBS as I was already a member but they have gone downhill a lot & tracker rates uncompetitive. I wanted to change my mortgage with them & they want to change me a search fee when they already hold the deeds. :rolleyes: Very unimpressed by their recent management & will soon.