The rates could change…
If you were to have a chat to us today and after speaking to us and listening to our recommendation and advice, you may then go on to put that offer in and secure that dream property that fits your affordability to a tee…
perfect…
just right…
exactly within budget…
A day or two passes whilst you collect your payslips, bank statements and source a solicitor…
you’re still mega excited and chuffed it’s all coming together perfectly…
then…
we hit you with the news that that particular lender has without notice put their rates up by 0.5% increasing the payments by £40pcm…
pushing you to the limits…
this is a part of our job that at the moment we really dislike and dread…
luckily we manage your expectations and warn you of this upfront…
it’s still not ideal when it happens and hurts your pocket…
so much so that the particular customer might decide that because of this they can’t afford income protection…
we just hope that lenders are listening to us brokers and introduce a standard for withdrawing rates.
this will help us as well as you in order to manage when rates change instead of finding out at the last hour…
so whether you use us, or go direct via your bank or another broker just know that we hate giving this bad news, from an administrative and regulatory point of view it’s a ball*che… it’s out of our control.
our advice to mitigate this risk is work with us to get the documents you need together as quickly as possible…
it’s worth noting that ourselves and lenders i.e your own bank cannot secure products without standard minimal document requirements, (ID, payslips, bank statements, proof of deposit)…
so if we can offer any tip… for a first time buyer, home mover or even someone switching fixed rates…
be prepared…
get your admin in order….
if you move fast we can move at the quickest of paces to secure that rate… if things drag… take time… it’s most likely that the rate you are working your budget on may change…
it could in fact go down a little…
at the moment for every 10 cases,
1 of 10 would reduce,
5 of 10 would stay the same,
4 of 10 would creep up slightly,
that might prompt a question…
what if during the application the rate decreases?
in most cases we can grab that lower rate mid application…
there will always be a cut off but in theory… yes we can grab the lower rate…
but… once the rate is locked in, should the lenders rates increase yours would be secure…
we have one adviser who’s job is dedicated to monitor all of our customers on a weekly basis to ensure they are getting the most up to date competitive rate.
that takes a hell of a lot of time…
but if we were getting a mortgage.. that’s what we would expect from our lender…
what we do know… is lenders don’t have the capacity to do this themselves, you’d have to contact them yourself and ask them…
that’s another way where we believe we stand above the lender…
hope you found this useful, albeit hard to swallow, we have to be transparent of the potential bad news you could receive at the very start of the mortgage application process which is completely out of our hands for now…
fingers crossed the lenders play fair and do something about it… for example allowing us to secure a product at agreement in principle stage… (Nationwide already do) so if they can… they all can…
FYI the style of writing is so you know its not the old ChatGPT writing this…
Paddy