Buying a house

[Randomage]

I personally went with a mortgage broker for my 2 houses. I found her when buying my first house and used her when obtaining the mortgage for the 2nd too.
I personally think she's great. I'm currently buying another property and selling mine. I am stuck in a fixed rate for 5 years and Santander told me that I have to pay the £4500 redemption fee and then get a new mortgage through them. My mortgage advisor did some digging through all of the t&c's and found out they were talking a load of rubbish. She saved me over £4k!!
Don't get me wrong, this is all stuff I could have done but she knew exactly where to look and knew that she was right.
I don't pay her any fee at all, she claims it from Santander who pay her a fee. I don't pay a penny extra for her advice and help

I need me some of that!! We'll hopefully be buying a house next summer (market should have settled a bit by then), someone with those skills would be seriously useful!!

 

[Dave-S3]

If your savvy and spend a while reading up on the facts and jargon before you commit to credit or a mortgage you don't need it, i certainly didn't, I'm 24 and on my second house & mortgage and second car loan (first ones paid off) Ive a few credit cards too that i have always paid in full on time, whilst taking advantage of 0% offers!

My advice to anyone thinking of buying within the next few years is to get your credit rating up at least by having a credit card that you use regularly and pay off in full each month.

Alot of folk slate them but nowadays you'd be daft not to have one, few people know it but if you buy or pay something on credit card and you have a problem with the goods or service you are not liable, the credit card company is, so for example you have some work done by a garage, you pay on the plastic and a week later the car falls apart, if the garage won't sort it or give you a refund, the credit card company should take over and sort it out!

They're worth their weight in gold for the protection you get using it for online/phone mail order stuff too!