Why are the best mortgage rates only through a broker?

[Boorfi]

I don’t want to listen to a sales pitch and be steered towards the mortgage that gives the broker the best kick back, even though they’re supposed to be whole of market.

I don’t want to send my statements off for some random guy to pore over.

I don’t want to be given a hard sell for building insurance and his mates’ rates for solicitors.

I want to contact the bank and deal with them directly, but in doing so there seems to be a penalty of 1% added interest!

How did it get to this?

Except for my first mortgage I always went direct, but mine was straight forward, good credit score, easily affordable so I just went for the best offers.

Brokers are good if you've got any potential issues/adverse credit etc.

Something tells me that you aren’t talking to the right brokers. I didn’t do any bank statements until we applied. Just told them our income and expenses and they even sent me to the website to check the rates for myself if I wanted

I could use the nicest mortgage broker in the world, but I don’t understand why I have go in order to get the best rates?

It's tricky knowing if they'll provide the best rates without speaking to them. I spoke with a few but have always gone direct for a good deal.

I see your point, it would be more logical if the information was freely accessible and everyone could go direct. But I do disagree about the best mortgage rates only being available through brokers, that's rarely true.

I think you are looking at the wrong brokers - also the person working at a bank checking your statements cojkd equally be described as 'a random guy' . I have never had a mortgage broker give me a hard sell to us their mates. Sometimes asked if I would be interested but nothing more mentioned if I say no.

Also one of the reasons they are cheaper is because the bank isn't employing someone to do their job. If you wanted to check 5 banks for mortgages that would be 5 peoples time whereas a mortgage broker does it once for all 5. The problem is each person's credit is slightly different so it is hard to put it all on a public website for anyone and everyone to look at and understand.

@LizDoingTheCanCan

I see your point, it would be more logical if the information was freely accessible and everyone could go direct. But I do disagree about the best mortgage rates only being available through brokers, that's rarely true.

Interesting as I have looked at a few high street lenders this evening and their broker-only rates are 1% cheaper than their publically available rates.

My mortgage broker is a woman.

Anyway, she’s a gem and does all the maths and form filling and magic and sorts it all out, and I’ve never had to have the “bank quizzing me on my outgoings” grilling I’ve known some people get. Couldn’t care less that she sees my bank statements – someone has to, at some point, if you want a mortgage.

Usually the best rates are through a broker as they are going to do all the legwork for the company. They need your bank statements because, quite frankly, customers lie about their income, outgoings and debts.

I don’t want to listen to a sales pitch and be steered towards the mortgage that gives the broker the best kick back

What sales pitch? Our broker just sends me a spreadsheet of deals, which I can sort and filter and pick the best deal (I.e. there's usually a column giving the cost over the 2/3/5 year fix, taking into account any product fee, which is how I usually compare them). There's no sales pitch, and I pick the deal I want.

He helped negotiate when we wanted extra borrowing (our area has gone up more than the national or regional average so needed to argue that the value had increased more, to maintain a good LTV). We just send the evidence needed for the application; usually 3 months bank statements and 3 months payslips.

When we were buying our first flat I went to Halifax as I've banked with them for years. We spent over an hour being grilled over every aspect of our expenditure, they wanted to count so much against the affordability and offered us a really crap sum. The broker we ended up using was only interested in our income and any debts (car loan), and maximised what we could borrow.

I paid a one off fee (I think it was £199) when we first used him, and we can use him as many times as we like for that.
I did use L&C once, they were quite good but slower and I like having a named person we can go to.

I'm not sure that it's that the best deals are available to them and them only, it's just the average Joe doesn't know that many of the lenders they have access to exist.

My brother is a mortgage broker. When he sorted my equity release and remortgage last year, he had so many lenders available I'd never heard of before so wouldn't have known to search for them myself.

...because a mortgage broker is a professional whose job is to get you the best deal, and has accumulated the knowledge needed in order to achieve this.

The same reason you have to pay a computer guy to repair your computer, or you can also do it yourself, but will rarely work as well.

Hardly rocket science, really.

No you’re right broker only deals feel unfair