Sponsored Post¦ I can hardly believe it’s been 9 years since my husband and I bought our first home together. We’ve remortgaged several times since. Then last year we found out we were expecting our second child and decided to buy a bigger house. When we were buying our house, we used a mortgage advisor and broker who worked at the estate agent’s. Ever since that experience, we have continued to use a mortgage broker whenever we have needed to. Whether it’s been for a brand new mortgage or for a remortgage, it has definitely been beneficial.
Buying our first house
My husband and I bought our first house in 2012. It was a little overwhelming trying to search online and compare mortgages from every lender by ourselves. A mortgage broker has the ability to look at all the mortgages available and compare what is available to you. It’s a little like using a price comparison site like you would use for your car insurance.
We also found it useful using a mortgage advisor and broker to help us to look at our finances together and assess our incomings and outgoings. It reassured us that we were actually able to afford a mortgage and showed us how much we could afford to pay each month. This kept in mind the costs of insurance, energy and other bills that might easily have been overlooked.
They also explained different types of mortgage to us and helped us to make a decision on what type was right for us. We decided to go for a fixed mortgage so that we always knew how much money was coming out of our accounts each month. Although, the interest levels for a tracker mortgage at the time were very tempting, we were only just coming out of the recession so it seemed too risky as if interest had shot up we may not have been able to afford it at the time.
We were buying a house in the same country, but if you’re getting an overseas mortgage, you’ll need an expert like Simon Conn.
Remortgaging
When our mortgage terms came to an end at our first house, it was helpful to look across the market once again. When you remortgage it can be a good time to either borrow more if you want to make home improvements. Alternatively, it can be an opportunity to reduce the number of years left on your mortgage! Due to equity, changing interest rates and mortgage deals, we actually found we were able to do this and pay less than we did on the previous mortgage term. Our mortgage advisor laid this out for us in a way that was easy to understand. We may not have been aware of this if it wasn’t for him!
Buying our second house
We once again used a mortgage broker and advisor when we were planning on buying another house. With a second baby on the way, we required more space. However, we weren’t really sure what we could afford. Especially with me now working part time! Using our advisor allowed us to work out what we could reasonably expect to be able to buy and have a realistic budget in mind before we started viewing houses.
I would recommend using a mortgage broker and advisor to anyone who is buying a house or remortgaging. It can be very confusing! It’s so useful to have someone on your side to help you work everything out and go through all the paperwork.