Is a local Glasgow Mortgage Adviser worth it?

If you’ve ever went through the stress of trying to buy a new home, you’ll know the questions;

Do you have a solicitor
Would you like the home report
Do you have a property to sell
What is your search criteria
What are you doing about your mortgage

All gets pretty boring after a while, especially for the estate agent!

Truth is, if an estate agent is asking you this, it’s a good sign. This means they are looking after their client, ensuring only quality buyers are proposed. Not to forget, Estate Agents are paid when the sale completes, keys cross hands and chocolates are delivered by thankful sellers!

This is why local advisers are worth it.

Most understand the basics of a mortgage adviser, they get you a mortgage. Job done. Well no, you don’t need a mortgage unless you’ve bought a home. Once you buy a home, you need a solicitor. On the day you move into your home, you have an asset, usually an expensive one, you really should protect it.

You can go online and search each individually but, what mortgage lender gives you most? Who’s got good criteria? What solicitor do you use? Don’t get me started on Money Supermarket type sites, that’s a minefield waiting to explode!

Why an adviser?

A local mortgage adviser should firstly be securing your purchase, without that, there is no mortgage. If we take ourselves back to our estate agents questions, they need answered. A good local adviser will have a relationship with the estate agent, they will have bought from them before at some point and will know what they like. This means they will have you prepared with a solicitor, mortgage agreed in principle, paperwork assessed and budgets understood.

A local mortgage adviser is about turning the situation round and making you the priority. Understanding what you want to achieve with the circumstances you have and making it happen. An adviser can research a mortgage products. Offer specialist knowledge of the market. They are independent, so not reliant on specific lenders. They make impartial recommendations on what mortgage is best for you.

Getting a mortgage is one of the biggest financial decisions you’ll make, so it’s important to get it right

Advisers must offer advice when they recommend a mortgage for you. They’ll assess the level of mortgage repayments you can afford, by looking at your income as well as your debt repayments and day-to-day spending. This means you should end up with a mortgage that suits your needs.

Advisers will do the same for insurance, there is real value in this as this market tends to be quite complicated. Different insurers have different products, many of them called the same but behaving very differently. You need to know it’s going to work.

Risks of not getting advice

If you choose your own mortgage without advice it’s called an “execution-only” application. This means that if it goes wrong, it’s on you. Not taking any advice means you have to take full responsibility for your mortgage decision.

Getting advice, rather than doing research on your own, means that if the mortgage turns out to be unsuitable for you later on, you’ll have more rights when you make a complaint.

For example, you could make a complaint of financial mis-selling if the advice you were given turned out to be unsuitable for you.

If you don’t take advice, you could end up with the wrong mortgage for your situation, which would be a costly mistake in the long run. Being rejected by your chosen lender, because you didn’t understand the restrictions clearly or what circumstances the mortgage was designed for.

Summary

Ultimately, you want a home. The estate agent wants a sale and the mortgage adviser, well they just want your money. They’re not getting it unless you get your home though!.

That’s quite a blunt, generalised summary and none of these things happen if keys don’t change hands. A mortgage adviser is the one best placed to manage this and simply for me, if you’re not using an adviser, you’re already at the back of the queue in Glasgow’s second hand housing market.

If you have any questions about the above, get in touch.

Scott McKellar

Director

Only Mortgages