“The two questions that anyone ever asks me are: ‘Are house prices going to go down?’ and ‘Is it a good time to fix my mortgage rate?'” BBC journalist and economist, Evan Davis.
The first question..pass me a crystal ball.
The second question…this hinges on who you ask. And who better to ask than a mortgage broker?! But, even then, you’re likely to get wildly varying answers because MORTGAGE BROKERS ARE ALL DIFFERENT! Stop the press!
Obviously, as people, we’re as individual as our personalities. But, there are also different TYPES of mortgage brokers, and their answer to the question of whether to fix or not, could be dependent on the type of mortgage broker they are.
So what are the different types of mortgage broker?
Unlimited access brokers, and the firms they work for, are totally independent. They can search the whole mortgage market for the right loan and lender for you (hence unlimited access). largemortgageloans.com is a great example of an independent, unlimited access broker. We have access to over 300 lenders, including small specialist lenders, private banks, building societies and the more traditional high street banks.
Unlimited access brokers can often source loans for those who perhaps don’t meet the ‘vanilla’ borrower criteria. This includes self-employed individuals, those with an unusual credit record, property developers, landlords, asset rich but cash poor people, overseas or expat buyers – and everyone in between.
You will likely pay a fee for the services of an unlimited access broker as they will carry out a full background deep dive into your personal finances and situation, engage with the lenders (often in person) on your behalf and secure you the very best deal. This will save you time and money in the long term.
Appointed representatives are not wholly independent. They can work as part of another company (such as a bank or building society) and they only have access to a set number of lenders, usually from an approved panel. They don’t have the same access to the full range of specialist lending products as unlimited access brokers do and they can only recommend loans or mortgages from that panel of lenders . Using an appointed representative will be cheaper as they don’t always charge a fee, taking commission instead from the lender, so this might suit your budget if you’re watching the pennies and your lending requirements are fairly straight-forward.
Increasingly, we’re seeing more robo-brokers emerge onto the scene. These are platforms which trawl through 100s of lending products on the market and come up with a shortlist of ‘best fit’ loans for the borrower to investigate further. But, robo-brokers can’t offer advice or opinions and the shortlist generated is dependent on the information that is provided by the borrower. So, they’re not really a mortgage broker in the traditional, true sense.
