Mortgages

A lot of people think that to get a mortgage, you need to go to your high street bank – but a mortgage broker is here to give you more options and make the whole process a lot easier.

When you go to a bank or building society, a lot of the time it’s a yes/no situation – if you don’t fit that lender’s criteria, you can’t get a mortgage. Meanwhile brokers can access multiple lenders, with panels of up to 70 mortgage companies to choose from. That gives you more options, so instead of being in a yes/no situation, it’s a question of which lender can give you the most appropriate and competitive deal for your situation.

We’re also here to make the process a lot easier when you’re buying a house or looking to refinance it. A lot of people are surprised about what solutions we can come up with. We’re all about saving you money as well. If you just go to one bank then you can only get the products they offer. By looking across a wide range of lenders we can get you a better value deal.

We’re here to help you get a mortgage as a First Time Buyer or if you’re moving home. But we can also help with looking at remortgages – and a lot of people at the moment are looking to raise capital to do home improvements or consolidate debts.

The other big one at the moment is to purchase Buy to Let properties. We’ve got a lot of professional landlords who are looking to invest in the property market, so we’ve got some brokers on the team that specialise in that area to help you find the best products we can.

A really important part of our job is also to make sure that once people take on the debt of a mortgage, that they are well protected. That means looking at life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection – all different types of protection to ensure that once you buy your dream house your family is protected in any scenario. It’s important that people get the right advice.

As early as possible – and certainly before you start viewing houses. Until you know what your budget is, you don’t actually know whether you can afford what you’re viewing. On the other hand, you might think you can only afford up to a certain amount but a Mortgage Broker might find you can actually buy a property at a higher price.

If you do the mortgage finance at the earliest point it makes the whole process a lot easier and smoother – it’s already done. Then it’s just a case of finding a property, making an offer and then you can send your Agreement in Principle over straight away to confirm your situation.

It’s very common for someone to see a house, decide to make an offer for it and then get in a panic because they haven’t already got a mortgage provider lined up – you want to get that house off the market. So the earlier you can sort out the mortgage, the smoother the process will be for you.

We meet a lot of people who have been told by their bank that they can’t get a mortgage – but very often our experience and our range of lenders will mean that we can find you a deal. We just need to go to a different lender. So don’t give up if your bank has given you bad news.

Yes – and more! We start by looking at how much you could borrow and working with you to decide which kind of product would work best. Once you have found a property to buy, we can help you with the whole process.

For example, estate agents might put you under a lot of pressure. They are working for the person selling the home, not yourself. But we are 100% on your side and have no allegiance with the estate agent. So if something comes up during a purchase we can give you clear and honest advice on the purchase side as well as the mortgage – we’ve got so much experience in supporting clients throughout the purchase journey.

Yes, we cover the whole country. We have local advisors who are based in Worcester, Malvern, Droitwich, Redditch and Kidderminster. So if you would prefer a face-to-face experience we do have advisors in those areas. But we also offer mortgage advice all over the country – from London to Bristol and right up to Scotland.

Technology these days makes it so easy to do things over the phone or video calls. It means we can still give that face-to-face experience wherever you live.

Initial consultations are all at our own expense – we don’t charge any fees for meetings or Agreements in Principle, or even when we get to recommending a product. A fee will apply once you decide to apply for a mortgage, and we will be totally clear from the start about how much this is and when you will need to pay it.

When you are looking at mortgages and anything to do with finance, it’s a really good idea to look at all the options. In this day and age there are three types of mortgage advisor. You’ve got the high street banks which is that yes/no process, then there are estate agency brokers that you are introduced to when you’re interested in buying a certain house. Some agents will even say that you have to use their broker – but that’s not true. You’re completely free to use whoever you want. The third type is an independent Mortgage Broker like us here at Mortgages Plain and Simple.

I’d usually suggest speaking to friends and family about who they’ve used – if they’ve had a good experience then what they recommend is going to be a good solution for you.

We started up in 2016 and originally it was just the two of us, who both worked as advisors in an estate agent. We met about nine years ago as mortgage brokers and came up with the idea of setting up a business to help people find a mortgage adviser in Worcester.

We came up with the name Mortgages Plain and Simple and it grew from there. It was tough to start with but we started getting more and more recommendations and referrals from our existing clients.

We’ve now got three partners within the business and we’ve worked together for a long time. We’ve got many other advisors who’ve joined us over the years and most of our business has been built on recommendations and referrals.