Delays with high street lenders? - same products quicker with Mortgage Brokers.

AToM has launched a new exclusive mortgage product aimed at the over 65s.  The Retirement Remortgage product is designed to assist those who wish to continue with a mortgage when their current mortgage term expires and their lender requires repayment of funds.  Or those with large equity in their property who wish to raise finance for specific projects. There is no maximum age and this offering  will allow customers to borrow up to 50% of the property value either on a repayment or interest only basis.   Interest rates are calculated based on the borrower’s individual circumstances but start from 4.50% fixed for two years (4.9% APR).  A minimum property value of £300,000 applies and terms and conditions apply.    

Whilst talking remortgages, the market is awash with lenders actively looking to attract new customers.  Whether you want to fix your monthly payments for a period of time, or you fancy a low rate tracker mortgage - or maybe both - a tracker rate with the option to fix later on, there are plenty of great products currently available.  Many lenders are offering superb remortgage opportunities with minimal costs to change, including free standard valuations (lender survey on your property) and legal costs (solicitors or conveyancer to register the charge in the new lenders name).  Rates are competitively low and mortgage product choice is at its highest for some time. 

Finally, we have had many mortgage customers approach us who have become frustrated in recent times.  Mainly with two things:  firstly, that some of the local banks or building societies cannot see mortgage customers for a matter of weeks (we heard one was booking four weeks ahead!) and secondly, each appointment often takes well in excess of a couple of hours.  Sadly, for whatever reason, that lender could not offer the customer what they wanted and so they went to another lender and sat through another hour or so only to find they could also not then offer what was required, and so on.  This is a large consumer commitment to time but without a satisfactory solution.  This is where independent and whole of market brokerages come into their own.  They will be able to offer you access to a number of lenders, including the high street names, if appropriate, and you only need to have one conversation with the same person.  In addition, they should have access to lenders who will manually assess your needs rather than a ‘computer says no’ type scenario, if required.  If I can also ‘plug’ a little, we also have access to a number of limited access lenders and exclusive products (as mentioned earlier!) not readily available to the wider mortgage market!