queenie

Okay, so what is the low-down on the best place to get a mortgage in Oz, or are they much of a muchness?

Any pitfalls to look out for?

Anybody used a mortgage broker, and do you think the service was worthwhile?

Any advice appreciated...

Queenie

Phoenixuk2oz

To answer your question Queenie I don't think there is a best place as such to get a mortgage. It very much depends on your own personal circumstances as to which lending society is prepared to take you on and this depends on what kind of a "risk" you are.

The only pitfalls I saw were to be aware of lending packages that promise you benefits, whereby when you look into them they're not beneficial to you after all. For example, we were offered a "Professional package" that came with a free credit card option...yet we knew we wouldn't use the credit card so this "benefit" was useless. There were other things too withinthis package that simply were not of benefit to us because of our circumstances yet to others they may have been.... so we declined this package and went to something more beneficial.

Another pitfall it the deposit you are prepared to pay. If you put down less than 20% deposit some / most expect an insurance indemnity i.e they will charge you a fee for putting less than 20% down [I believe the lenders consider you more of a risk if you don't owe 20%].

As for Mortgae brokers: Mixed views on this. We used one simply because I couldn't be ar*ed looking around however in reality I ended up challenging his quotes and effectively getting him to look harder at other options thereby ended up "managing" the various options that were available. However, the good thing about having a mortgage broker [IMHO] is that they take the pain away by ringing / contacting the various lenders and ours did a great job of sorting out the First Time Home Owners grant so that was good too. Also, as with all lending institutions, you have reams and reams of things to sign and the Mortgage Broker sorted all that out for us, even delivering documents direct to our door, letting us sign them and then he took them direct to the lenders by hand thereby speeding up the process. So on balance, although a Mortgage Broker is supposed to get you the best deal....in my experience they are not always "equipped" to do it as with all things, it depends on their capabilities in terms of how they challenge the lenders and whether they actually are able to look for in terms of the best deal hence you need to push for what you want, which is not necessarily what the Broker wants. Having said all that, I believe our Broker was a good chap to have on board for the reasons I mentioned so long as you don't take a pacifist role [does that make sense?].

Anyways...after all that waffle. Enjoy house hunting!

queenie

Thanks Phoenix,

All very good advice. I'll make sure I weight up all the benefits. Indemnity is a bit of a rip off, I agree.

Your broker seems to have worked out for you in the end but I didn't much like the fact that you had to push him harder to the job he should have done in the first place.

Queenie