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Finance flusters - 6 February 2008

Posted by Paul Collins No comments


Piggy looks worried...

As you may have read from the previous blog entries, I am currently renting a property, and beginning to become slightly distressed at just how much money I am paying into someone else’s bank account. Now while I know that having my own place will mean that I am committing myself to paying money into someone else’s bank for at least a quarter of a century, I will at least have something to show for it at the end.

While I am well aware of the processes involved in getting a property of my own, the next stage is one that I don’t particularly relish – mortgages. A disturbing report recently suggested that British home buyers spend more time researching their summer holiday than they do on choosing financial products. Having started to look into the market myself as a buyer, this is not too much of a surprise.

This is partly because is the subject of financing a house purchase is not the most exciting of bedtime reading matter. I’m sure I can be accused of not really taking this project seriously if I don’t make the effort to get into the information I need to know that could potentially save or cost me thousands of pounds. It’s not that I don’t want to find out about mortgages — I, of all people should be able to cut through the dross — but the sheer amount and variation of the information available out there is quite staggering.

An added complication for me is that I am a slightly strange case for mortgage companies. At the age of nearly 30 I have no real credit history – my student loan has been paid off, I don’t use credit cards and I have no personal loans. In initial enquiries with a couple of mortgage companies, it has been suggested that this might make it difficult for me to be approved for some products.

Using a financial adviser is beginning to look like the best course of action for me, and I’m sure that will be the case for the tens of thousands of people who find that their two years of fixed-rate borrowing is now rapidly coming to an end. Either they will take on professional advice or, more likely if you listen to the statistics, they will take a list of the mortgages available, a pin and…you know the rest. At least those two weeks in the Med will be superb.


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