[Finance] Mortgage advice wanted

[Live by the sea]

Lots of people withdrawing money from stocks and shares and investing in property according to a friend of mine whose a IFA in London . Stock market expected to remain fairly flat for the next 3 years cos of the economic impact of covid etc

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

Agents not allowing viewings if you’re not under offer is to do with the market. It is moving extremely quickly so there is no point viewing if you cannot make an offer there and then.

Parents put theirs up, with an open house 5 days later. 11 viewings, 3 offers, bidding war went £13k over listing price (or £45k more than one agent wanted to list at!)

No point viewing if you can’t seriously offer there and then

Exactly.

I’ve worked in the industry for 22 years as an agent and now broker and whilst there have been times when the market has been hot and prices jumping up, early 2000’s especially, I’ve never known anything like this. It’s gone a bit crazy, open days on every property produce many viewing and numerous offers, nearly all of them over asking price.

And to echo US, whilst the market is hot and there are some good deals available, post Covid though it is harder to get a mortgage than it has been for a very, very long time and 100% I recommend using a broker.

For example, there are two of the biggest mainstream, high street lenders who if you are self employed, there is virtually no point in applying to them. And another major lender who two/three weeks ago were declining nearly every application where credit scores weren’t 100% perfect, who then tweaked their systems again last week and are now a lot more lenient. Unless you speak to someone who deals with these lenders on a daily basis, you don’t know these things and can end up wasting a lot of time, effort, credit searches and potentially losing your property. There’s also the fact that brokers get a lot of exclusive deals that are better than what you can get direct and some lenders that are only available through imtermediaries.

For the relatively small fee brokers charge, we’re worth every penny in my totally unbiased opinion! Seriously though, this is not a personal business pitch, use a broker rather than going direct. Recently I’ve had to take over a number of applications for clients who started going with their bank and have had numerous problems.