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Just after a bit of general advice if anybody is clued up on this sort of thing. About to renew after a 2 year fixed rate & our financial advisor has asked us for our opinion on what the property is worth before we decide to stay with our current provider or look elsewhere. Paid £96,500 for it & would say it's worth about £100,000 now after the work we've had done. Just wondering how disclosing this information would effect my future mortgage payments. Are they likely to go up/down/stay the same depending on what we say the value is? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Samdy is your man.

As the mortgage company will commission their own valuation at some stage during the process and I assume base their borrowing decision on that I am not really sure what point the financial advisor is trying to achieve?

The mortgage company won't *always* commission their valuation from my experience, particularly if you're renewing with the same provider and the price you give them is roughly what they'd expect in line with market changes based on the previous price. If you tell them it's gone up 50% then they'll almost certainly inspect!

But they want to know the approximate value for the loan to value calculation, which makes a big difference to the rates you'll be offered, if you're near a band (usually 60/75/90%) then it might be worth guessing a little higher, but as Horlock says there's a reasonable chance any new provider would want to inspect.

Ask Samdy. He will save you a butt ton of money.

Actually be quite interested to know what the mortgage companies are doing at the moment, as all the agents I speak to are very loathe to commit either way to what the housing market is doing, whilst the house builders seem to think the market is going nowhere and are just sitting on their hands and not seeking planning permission on anything new at the moment.

It's all down to the loan size in comparison to the value of the property.

If you reckon the property is worth £100k, the loan to value (LTV) would be higher than it would be if you said it's worth, say, £120k. In very general terms, the lower the LTV the better your interest rate will be and the lower your monthly payments. Your broker is asking you what it's worth so he can determine the LTV and quote you a rate.

If you stay with your current lender, they'll probably use an indexed value. They'll take the purchase price of £96,500 and apply a percentage increase (or decrease) to it. Some don't even do that, they just give you a range of new rates to choose from.

A new lender however would probably instruct a new valuation, which could work in your favour if the valuer thinks it's worth more than the indexed value and you therefore get a better LTV.

Cheers for the feedback Sam (& others who have contributed). Hopefully I'll get myself a good deal. Maybe Lee Power would know a trick or two about the art of negotiation.  :toocool:

I'd imagine so. In many ways, buying a football club is a lot like buying a house .... :D

Samdy is correct.  If you need to get an idea of the current value of your property, take a look at Rightmove or Zoopla.  Both have the facility to type in your post code and obtain an indexed valuation of your (and anyone else's) property based on the last sale/purchase price.  It won't, however, take into account the value of any improvements made to the property (eg building an extension, landscaping a garden, etc) simply because the sites don't know about that, of course.  If you're of a nosy inclination, it's also a good way to find out what your friends and neighbours paid for their houses!  Have fun!

Our mortgage was with Lloyds and when it ran out they wouldnt give us a competitive deal even with The Bank of England base rate being so low.  I looked online and London & Country who found us loads of great deals non of which were Lloyds. We borrowed £151K at a LTV of 50% through nationwide 5 year fixed at 1.9%. About £760 each month compared to Lloyds £880
In summary  London & Country are worth a try. They are not allowed by Lloyds to sell their mortgages as they are not competitive enough and therefore they won't recommend it.

Thought I would bump this thread as it's that time where I need to renew my mortgage again.

To cut a long story short I am coming to the end of a 5 year fixed rate deal in a couple of months. I have 18 years left to pay & am strongly considering trying to condense this over a 10 year period instead.

Would be very interested in hearing people's thoughts on this, especially those who have done something similar. It seems from reading back as though this is very much Samdy's world so any feedback from him & anybody else would be great.

TIA.

My only advice is pay off via a variable repayment mortgage and if you can pay extra, do so. More so now with rates being at a historically low figure and only likely to rise. If I understand these deals as such, then there are penalties to pay if you redeem the deal early so not sure how that effect a repayment plan.

I paid my mortgage off a few  years ago doing as LL has reccomended

Paying your mortgage off early is more of a physiological than numerical decision. Money is cheap so there's little incentive for paying off debt, but if you want to try and pay it off in 10 years, go for it.

Generally it's better to keep the term the same but then over pay to bring the term down, you never know when you might want to go back to the lower payment for a while if necessary.

Apparently Nationwide are introducing 0•99% mortgage, might be worth hanging on a bit.

Worth a read. If you’re adverse to or allergic to The Daily Mail swipe right, or is it left 😁

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-9644093/The-perfect-home-lockdown-savings.html

Or making love to a beautiful woman  :)

It's a numerical decision for me, less interest in the long term. I try and pay a lump sum each year as there is bugger all earnings on savings.

Thank you to those who have offered their opinions.

*Bump* Our 2 year fixed rate is coming to an end in Feb 2023 where we move to a variable rate. Is now the time to be badgering the Mortgage provider to remortgage (not sure if that is the correct terminology) onto a new 2 year fixed rate in Feb? Obviously with rate rises going through the roof I figure our best plan might be to try and get fixed into a lowish rate as possible.

I did a rudimentary comparison check yesterday and have an idea of what other providers (that said they were 'small' building societies that I had never heard of) might offer but ideally would like to keep the mortgage with my current provider if at all possible.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

When I worked at NBS Mortgages (which was 15 years ago, so possibly useless advice), people could move off their old rate onto a new fixed term one three months before the old rate expired, but couldn't move onto the variable rate ahead of time.

It's not an ideal time for your rate to come to an end, as you've probably already worked out. Probably worth taking a look at your LTV and seeing if there's any way you can get it into a lower bracket with whoever your provider is, which might offset a bit.

Thanks Nemo, our LTV is way below the apparent good LTV (80% I'm reading) so I assume that works in our favour?

80% is pretty good, there will be lower bands though. Think NBS' "best" is 60% and below, and there's a band at below 75% as well.

Depending on house prices in your area, your LTV may be better than you'd imagine. If you change provider they'll probably do a basic house valuation, your existing provider may just ask you how much your house is worth or use an average.