With the huge variety of mortgage comparison websites currently available on the web, property buyers will be forgiven for thinking that a mortgage broker is a luxury that can be dispensed with without any major loss. These comparison websites, after all, claim to perform an exhaustive search of the mortgage market, providing their users with a list of the most competitive rates available at any given time, for any given mortgage type. 

Despite such claims, however, almost three quarters of all mortgage applications are submitted via intermediaries, and this number is expected to continue rising steadily over the next few years. Why, then, are so many borrowers choosing to enlist the help of a mortgage adviser when navigating the property market?

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Avoid rejections – while rate comparison sites do, in most cases, provide users with a list of the lowest rates currently available on the market, they do not however provide users with a list of the rates for which they are eligible. This is fundamental as lenders have unique sets of criteria that must be satisfied by the mortgage applicant in order for a mortgage to be offered. These criteria include age, passport, residency, occupation, income amount, income source, and other mortgages – which is to say nothing about the actual property in question. If the borrower fails to meet these criteria, their application will be rejected, and a record of this rejection will be left on the applicant’s credit report. The more rejections a borrower has on their credit report, the harder they will find it to get a mortgage.

Mortgage brokers are well versed in the unique criteria and requirements of each lender and are therefore able to cater their product recommendations based on such considerations. This means that the likelihood of a mortgage rejection shrinks considerably when applications are submitted via a mortgage broker.

Save Money – whereas comparison sites provide users with a general list of the best deals currently available on the market, a mortgage broker will be able to provide you with the best deal on the market for which you are actually eligible. Many lenders offer products that are only available through intermediaries – these products will therefore not be available through comparison sites. Furthermore, a good mortgage broker will have working relationships with specialist lenders who may, in certain situations, be able to provide borrowers with bespoke products that they would not have been able to arrange themselves.

Knowledge of Specialist Lender Market – Many of our clients come to us after they have been rejected for a mortgage by one of the high-street banks. They therefore frequently have little hope of being offered a mortgage, only to find that there are a host of lenders willing to offer them a competitive deal. This is because mainstream lenders often have extremely rigid criteria that severely restrict the kind of borrower to whom they are willing to lend. They may, for example, reject applicants for no other reason than that they are self-employed, or that they only have one years’ worth of company accounts. Or else that the property they are looking to buy has too much land, or an annex, or is of unusual construction. There are a whole range of specialist lenders, however, who are very often able and willing to lend to such individuals; the key is knowing which lenders are happy to lend to which kinds of applicants. A good mortgage broker will have this information readily at hand, and will often be able to find deals for their clients.  Private Finance have 137 lender relationships and used over a hundred of these in 2019 in order to obtain the best terms for their clients.

Speed – the mortgage application process can be a long and, at times, tedious one. A good mortgage broker will project manage the entire process from start to finish, coordinating between your lender and solicitor to ensure that your mortgage is arranged as quickly as possible. Additionally, if for any particular reason you require a mortgage within a specific time frame, a good broker will know which lenders are the quickest and will therefore be able to cater their recommendation accordingly.

Reduce stress – a good mortgage broker will work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that you are insulated from all stress. Moreover, having overseen thousands of mortgage applications before, they should be able to pre-empt most problems before they even happen, removing as many complications from the process as is possible. If unforeseeable, unavoidable issues do arise, they should then know what to do to bypass such and how to avert any future issues.

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By this point, the value of an independent mortgage broker should be readily apparent. The next question you must now ask yourself, then, is which independent mortgage broker, of the many thousands out there, do I choose? We were recently voted Adviser Firm of the Year at the latest CBG/CMS conference and therefore believe that we are as well positioned to meet the mortgage needs of our clients as any firm currently operating in this market space.

If you would like to speak to one of our expert mortgage advisers, you can get in touch by calling us on 02073172820 or by emailing us at info@privatefinance.co.uk.

YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE

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