Mortgage Advice in Southend on Sea

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Mortgage advice in Southend on Sea

We have our roots firmly planted in Southend and we love nothing more than helping the people of Southend to achieve their mortgage and home buying goals. Whether you’re a first time buyer looking for a mortgage, you’re moving house, you’re self employed or you’re looking for a buy to let mortgage – we’ve got you covered. Get in touch with us today for fee free mortgage advice.

Southend on Sea mortgage brokers

If you’re looking for a mortgage broker in Southend, then look no further. We have a large team of professional brokers with years of experience who help 1000s of people a year achieve their property goals. We give mortgage advice and guidance to hundreds of people every year and we don’t charge a single penny for it! We are one of the only zero fee mortgage brokers in Southend.

Independent mortgage broker in Southend

We are a fully independent mortgage adviser in Southend. What that means is we aren’t linked or affiliated to any particular lender and we can offer fully impartial advice across all of our mortgage products. Southend is a great place to buy your first home, move house, buy a second property or start your investment journey with a buy to let. All of our team are from Southend and the surrounding areas (including Benfleet, Chelmsford, Leigh-on-sea and Hadleigh) meaning we know the market well and have a rich local knowledge. Our head office is just outside of Southend in Westcliff and you can pop in to see us for an appointment, we can come to you or if you’d prefer we can do everything remotely on email and over the phone.

Mortgage services in Southend

Aside from first time buyer mortgages, remortgages and buy to let mortgages we can also help where others can’t with our self employed mortgages for company owners, second mortgages and bad credit mortgages. Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help you to achieve your mortgage and property goals.

What should you look for when choosing a mortgage adviser in Southend-on-Sea?

When choosing a mortgage adviser, it can be difficult to know how good they are unless you already know them. We would suggest looking at reviews to check their experience.

Some brokers are tied to a limited panel, but you want a company that has no limitations. At Affinity, we can speak with any lender currently operating in the mortgage market.

Is it worth using a local mortgage broker rather than going directly to a bank? It is always advisable to speak to a mortgage broker rather than going directly to a bank.

If you go to a bank, they will only offer you one option and talk strictly about their own criteria. You could spend a lot of time visiting ten different banks just to see what each one can do.

A mortgage broker takes your details and looks closely at what you are looking for. They can sift through all the options to find the right bank for your situation. Whether it is affordability, rates, or the property, a broker can sort all those details in one go and smooth the whole process for you.

Do mortgage advisers in Southend-on-Sea charge fees or are they paid by commission?

Some mortgage advisers charge fees; others do not. We are all paid a commission from a lender, and this does not affect the rates that you have.

Here at Affinity, we do not charge any fees for residential mortgages. We do charge fees for other products, such as Buy to Lets, but we can discuss those as and when.

Generally speaking, it will vary from adviser to adviser what fees they charge and what they charge for.

Can a local mortgage adviser help with specialist situations like bad credit or self-employment?

A good mortgage adviser should be able to help you in any kind of situation, whether that is bad credit or self-employment.

A good mortgage broker will look at what you need and the options available. This includes whether you are a limited company director, a sole trader, or have impaired credit, and we will give you the right solution based on the scenario in front of us.

What’s the process of working with a mortgage adviser from first meeting to completion?

The process generally starts with a meeting with a mortgage adviser, which could be face to face, via Teams, or over the phone. In this meeting, we take all your details and look at what you want to achieve, whether you are a first-time buyer, moving house, or looking at Buy to Let or specialist finance. We will get a good feel for your situation and give you an initial idea of what your options will be.

Once you have found a property, we will ask for documents such as bank statements, payslips, self-employed income details, and ID. After you send those over, the first part of the application is usually getting an Agreement in Principle. If that goes through successfully, we can move on to submitting the full mortgage application to the lender.

When the full application is submitted, we send your documents to the lender, and they will instruct a valuation of the property. If the valuation is fine and the lender is happy with your income and documents, your mortgage will go to offer.

In the background, you will have instructed solicitors to start the legal work, and the mortgage usually goes to offer well before the legals are completed.

While we wait for the legal process to finish, we monitor the market and can change your mortgage rate if rates improve. Along the way, we will also chat about whether you need protection, such as life or critical illness cover, or income protection, and pass you on to one of our protection advisers for advice.

From making an offer on a property to completion, you should expect a minimum timeframe of around 16 weeks.

Do mortgage advisers in Southend-on-Sea cover surrounding areas like Leigh-on-Sea, Westcliff and Rayleigh?

Any mortgage adviser can cover the whole of the UK. We are not restricted to just Southend, Leigh-on-Sea, Westcliff, or Rayleigh. It does not matter where the property is located in the UK.

We can arrange mortgages across the entire country, including Scotland and Wales, so you can buy a property anywhere you want. We can also arrange mortgages for people who live outside of the UK. We are not tied to being local.