Mortgage question - tell me I'm not crazy.

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So I've been recommended a mortgage by an advisor from the mortgage broker London & Country, which on the face of it seemed alright but now I've thought about it and done some maths I'm beginning to think it's going to cost us hundreds of pounds compared with other deals. I can't speak to them right now so I'm double, triple, quadruple checking my maths so I can jump up and down on him when they're back in on Tuesday. I'm really just after some people to confirm/correct me as I've started to get a little tunnel vision after comparing a billion million deals.

Requirements are as follows:
Loan of £145,000
LTV @ 74.4%
2 year fix

We're first time buyers.

Now unfortunately due to a mix up with a mobile phone contract coming to an end we have a late payment on our credit record that doesn't sit well with quite a few lenders, meaning we're outside their lending criteria. From what I hear Halifax don't mind this sort of thing, and the advisor at London & Country agreed after seeing our credit file.

His recommendation is:
Halifax homemover @ 2.14%, 2 year (27 month) fix, 30 year term.
£650 fees (£355 valuation, £295 administration fee)
£0 product fee.

This works out at being...
Payments - 27*£545 = £14,715
+
Admin + valuation fee - £650
= total payable - £15,365 over the 2 year fixed term

The product is exclusive to them and can be found here as "FAJ102"

When looking at it in isolation it sounded good, low rate, no product fee etc. However, my maths yesterday and today shows it as being clearly more expensive than not only deals I can get by going direct to Halifax, but also more expensive than deals that are available to intermediaries!

What it comes down to is that Halifax currently have a cashback deal of 1% of the loan amount, equating to £1,450 in my case. Obviously the homemover product I've been recommended does not offer this 1% cashback incentive, as it is for first time buyers only. When taken in to account over the 2 year (actually 27 months) term, the FTB products that offer cashback seem to save hundreds over the homemover product I've been recommended.


Examples of FTB products available through Halifax Intermediaries that have the cashback:


2.09% + £999 fee
Payments: 27*541 = 14,607
+
Fees: £650 + £999 product fee = £16,256
-
Cashback: £1,450
=
Total payable £14,806 over 27 month term
vs £15,365 recommendation = £559 saving


2.29%+ £999 fee
Payments: 27*556 = 15,012
+
Fees: £650 + £999 product fee = £16,661
-
Cashback: £1,450
=
Total payable £15,211 over 27 month term
vs £15,365 recommendation = £154 saving


2.49% + £0 fee
Payments: 27*571 = 15,417
+
Fees: £650 = £16,067
-
Cashback: £1,450
=
Total payable £14,617 over 27 month term
vs £15,365 recommendation = £748 saving


2.69% + £0 fee
Payments: 27*586 = 15,822
+
Fees: £650 = £16,472
-
Cashback: £1,450
=
Total payable £15,022 over 27 month term
vs £15,365 recommendation = £343 saving

That's all of the suitable first time buyer products that halifax intermediaries offer, and all seem to leave me with money in my pocket compared with the homemover product, due to the pretty significant cashback.

Now there are even better deals to be had when applying for a product directly through Halifax instead of an intermediary, however that's a different point altogether as it's something that London and Country don't have access to. It's something I'll be considering alongside attempting to get the mortgage advisor to explain his recommendation.

So can anyone see any reason as to why I've been recommended the homemover product? My guess is the cashback simply hasn't been taken in to account.

Please excuse my formatting :p
 
Hey dude,

The you looked at the 10year fix Barclays are offering?
whilst the Apr isn't the lowest out there I think the length of the fix could outweigh that.

I'm not sure how the missed/late payment would sit with barclays .
we 're mortgaged just before Xmas, halved the Apr, chopped a chink off the monthly payments Nd Lao reduced the length of the mortgage. was a 5 year fix

When we took it out there were a few options but the one with the 999 fees actually worked out best.
things like cash back and other related offers from when we were looking were very rarely offerred and Only discussed once we had mentioned it
 
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Barclays are Woolwich as far as I aware - their lending criteria is pretty explicit about no arrears in the past 12 months, which would put us outside their lending criteria. I'm not really looking to fix for that long, more likely that our circumstances will be different in 2 years and we'll be able to reassess our income/outgoings and renegotiate or find a new deal then.

Yeah the ones with fees tend to lend themselves better to higher loans or loooong fixes.
 
74.4% Ltv?

Surely you need 75% for a better rate otherwise your rate at 70% would be the same? I was told that rates change every 5 percent so if you can't reach the next 5 you might as well stick to the lower 5 and keep yourself some cash back to cover fees or decorating.
 
74.4% Ltv?

Surely you need 75% for a better rate otherwise your rate at 70% would be the same? I was told that rates change every 5 percent so if you can't reach the next 5 you might as well stick to the lower 5 and keep yourself some cash back to cover fees or decorating.

I've just been copying and pasting my maths from other documents, but yeah every product is based on a LTV of 75% or lower. When I say 74.4% LTV, that's the good side of 75%, as in 25.6% deposit. AFAIK there are no lenders that draw up products based on your specific situation. That's not my question though :p
 
The deal you've been offered definitely looks below par.
One thing I would look at however is what the outstanding balance is on each product at the end of the fixed term (there are online calculators or spreadsheets that can help with this). The reason I say this is that depending on the product you may owe a slightly different amount after two years (due to a differing amount of your payments going towards interest vs repayment - typically I'd expect the outstanding balance to be slightly higher on higher rate products in other words not only are your monthly payments higher but you've also repaid less of the capital in the early years). To be honest, without thinking about it too deeply I suspect it makes little different on a 2 year fix assuming they all revert to same SVR.
 
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Yep that's right, they all revert to the same SVR which of course I'll look at getting away from as soon as is possible after the fixed term. I did a few calculations and as far as I can tell the difference is negligible as all the products are over the same term. I plan on overpaying to some degree, which further muddies the waters!

Thanks for confirming what I thought about the recommended product!
 
Some guy on MSE forum has created a spreadsheet that lets you plug in all the information to see the costs for the full length of the mortgage. Can't remember the name but should be easy enough go to find and well worth a look.
 
I ended up in a similar situation. What I was being recommended ended up being more expensive despite the high fee for the mortgage we eventually went for, yet no brokers recommended anything similar to it. Ended up going direct in the end.
 
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