IF YOU DON’T ASK …

I have been sitting pondering for some time what to do about several mortgages where fixed rates have ended and I’m now left nursing very uncompetitive rates. Of course I’ve looked around the Internet for the best rates. I have also visited Property Hawk mortgages. In fact, I was just going to settle for the 6.04% lifetime tracker for one property when I suddenly got to thinking. This rate was certainly competitive; almost a full 1% below the 7% I was currently paying, but……………

I hate fees!
The thing that always irks me is paying fees. Some mortgage brokers charge a pretty reasonable £250. When you work out that they will source you an appropriate product and liase with the mortgage company until the your receive your offer this is actually pretty good value. Particularly when compared to the competition such as who charges a 1% brokerage fee. This clearly becomes more expensive relatively to MFB the more you borrow. Not only are their brokers fees involved in remortgaging, but also a whole string of other charges: there are application fees to the mortgage provider, surveyors fees for the mortgage valuation only to tell your prospective mortgage company what even your 9 year old daughter already knows it is worth. Then there are the conveyancing fees which seems ludicrous when you are remortgaging a property because no transfer in ownership occurs. . Then there are telegraphic transfer fees for getting the mortgage monies in place. One company even charges a booking fee of £100, just for the pleasure of potentially being their customer. In short it’s an endless drag on your financial resources and time all effectively to have a different bank with yes hopefully a better rate of interest collecting your mortgage payments.

Good news
It was during all this that I had a eureka moment. It suddenly occurred to me rather than take all these charges on the chin, what about going back to my mortgage company and being ‘up front ‘ with them. “ I’m going to move unless you give me a market competitive rate”. I then announced to them that I’d found a tracker at just over 6% and was going to remortgage, so what could they do for me? I expected the usual fob off. To my amazement my ultimatum was greeted with a rather accommodating tone. In an instant they had offered me a 5.7% tracker rate with no fees to pay to transfer over to this new rate. This spoke my language and I’m now waiting for the documents to come through the post so I can sign and move on to the new rate. It really was that simple.

Downside
One downside to this is that whilst I have a good 50% of equity in both properties, if I did want to increase my borrowing I would have to go through the process of making a mortgage application with the associated additional fees. Therefore if you are looking to increase your borrowing then it is probably is worth talking to a good broker or having a look at the rates on our BTL Mortgage Search

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