Share the things you wish you’d known before getting a mortgage with Habito - £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

Whether you’re buying for the first time, moving house or remortgaging, getting or changing a mortgage can be a daunting, time-consuming and confusing experience. Online mortgage broker Habito would like you to share the things that – with hindsight – you wish you’d known before getting a mortgage.

Here’s what Habito have to say: “Habito is the world’s first digital mortgage broker. It searches the entire market and enables you to apply online for a mortgage or remortgage quickly all online without any cost”

So, if there’s anything you wish that you’d known before you decided to take the plunge and get a mortgage, share this below.

Also, if you’re considering getting a mortgage or remortgaging, feel free to head over to Habito and see if they could help.

All those who post a comment on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for a store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks, and good luck!

MNHQ

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I wish we had thought a bit more about how our income would change after having children, as the first few years were very difficult. Especially as the house still needed doing up. Thankfully the interest rates have gone down and we've got a better deal now so finally feeling happy that we bought the house, as we were kind of regretting it a bit when we were struggling so much! Reading the comments on here is making us think about making some overpayments to make it easier in the long run.

I wish I'd have saved as much as possible, rather than doing the absolute minimum -could have got a much better rate!

How much will actually end up being repaid!! When we first took out our mortgage 19 years ago it was for just under £40,000 - but given that we've "remortgaged" / taken on additional borrowing 3 times, plus all the interest accrued over 25 years, we will probably end up repaying closer to £200,000!! :o It's seemed easy just to say "add it on to the mortgage" rather than taking out a separate loan, but looking at the total amount repaid it's shocking!

I wish I'd known I prefer living in a van!

that there will always be an endless amount of DIY!!

Whether interest rates were going to go up or down!

Not to bother with endowments. Watch out for early repayment charges and other small print.
Obvious but save up as large a deposit as possible.
Get independent advice.

I wish we'd used a mortgage broker to get a better deal. We were very naive and should've saved up more first too.

I wish I'd saved more money as I bought my first flat on a shoe string. The insurance company took a the first payment by cheque but then proceeded to take it by direct debit too. Many phone calls to the bank and insurance resulted in it being sorted out three months later! I had a conversation with a friend in the street and completely broke down over it. Weeping and wailing and being completely embarrassed afterwards. So I would advise to have plenty of ready cash in the first few months as a nice comfort blanket.

I wish I'd saved harder for a bigger mortgage to get a lower loan to value percentage. I'd also wished I'd got a mortgage that doesn't penalise for early repayments / or over payments.

Getting true Independent financial advise is crucial as house builders/estate agents have their own agendas and reasons for pushing their own 'independent' advisers.

Go for a long-term fixed-rate if you have stretched yourself financially. You may pay more but you are not vulnerable to fluctuations in the base rate.

I definitely wish I'd saved a bigger deposit and that I'd paid extra when I could. .. It would have saved a lot in interest

Overpay when you can! I didn't and regret it now!

I would have had a much bigger deposit. I wish I had been wiser with my money in my younger days and saved instead of spending. It would have made life so much more easier when it came to starting out of the housing market.

1. That overpaying even a small amount a month will make a massive difference to reducing the term/cost of the mortgage - we're managing £50 a month extra now, but I wish we'd started straight away.
2. That in some ways I feel more insecure with a mortgage than I did when I was renting because if anything massive happened to our finances we could potentially lose everything, but if the same happened while renting there is usually the option of moving somewhere cheaper a lot faster than trying to sell up.

I wish I had known more about remortgage fees and how this can impact on the length of the mortgage you choose

We are planning on overpaying as soon as we have cleared a loan. I didn't know until a few years in how much you can save!

Like a few other MNs we know now that endowments we took out in the 1990s were such a bad idea with massive shortfalls rather than the promised lump sums.

Think long and hard before entering into a fixed rate for an extended time. We had to pay a huge redemption penalty when circumstances forced us to move 3 years into a 5 year fix, and we lost tens of thousands. In future I wouldn't do that unless I was certain we could afford to rent the place out until the end of the term, while living elsewhere - even if that was at a loss, and even if huge price falls were possible at the time.

That interest rates go up and down and, just because you can afford a mortgage at one time, doesn't mean you will always be able to afford it.

I wish I'd known more about "snagging" when we bought our new build; if I knew then what I knew now I'd have hired a professional snagger to produce a report to issue to the builders so I could more easily get the issues sorted. Some 18 months later there's still things I'm unhappy with that the builder doesn't seem to care less about.

Be conservative when working out how much you can afford! We very nearly bought a house which needed a load done to it, for the same price we bought our house we got in the end (which needed hardly anything done). We would really have struggled to get everything done when paying for our mortgage, so I'm so glad someone offered more than we did!

Try to save as much money as possible before buying because of all the hidden expense that come once moved in.
Find your own solicitors, do not go with the recommended one from the estate agents. Negotiate a good deal on the estate agent commission, always room for a deal.

I wish I had understood more about the different types of mortgage and the pitfalls of taking a fixed rate via a variable rate and what it actually meant in financial terms. We took a fixed rate and when that ended our mortgage halved because interest rates were so low

Don't go in to your overdraft - this makes a difference to the bank.