Broker said no, bank said yes!

[Marianne S]

My boyfriend and I are first time buyers and we were advised by anyone we talked to to deal with a broker when looking for a mortgage. We went to a broker and he said no one would touch us because my boyfriend has been self-employed for just a year (I'm permanent in my job). He advised us to try one of the major banks but he didn't hold much hope. My boyfriend went into AIB yesterday and they were delighted to talk to him about a mortgage and said it would be no probem at all, our application is being processed.

Has anyone else experienced similar? Did we just go to a lazy broker? I would like to shop around but would there be any point in seeing another broker?

 

[Petal]

Why don't you email a couple of brokers, send all your details and mention that AIB approved you, then they will make the effort to get other offers in for you. I went with REA and was very happy with their service, other people have provided good feedback for primafinance and others have been mentioned as well, you could just do a search on brokers to see what other people said. If you don't want to go down that route, at least approach a couple of other banks, definitely ask PTSB, they are amongst the most competitive for FTB (for 100% mortgages that is). ICS are very good, too. You can email all of them really, no need to run around... I just got application forms sent by all of them and applied to most banks and then went to the broker as they offered a good deal with low cost lsolicitors fees.

 

[demoivre]

We went to a broker and he said no one would touch us because my boyfriend has been self-employed for just a year (I'm permanent in my job).

Did the broker mean " nobody that he dealt with would touch you " .....sounds like it to me - how many lenders does the broker deal with?

 

[Marianne S]

I don't know how many he deals with to be honest, it's a pretty big broker group though.We were a bit put off by his attitude, he just didn't want to know.

I will try e-mailing a few places, I thought I'd have to go in to see someone but that's a much better idea, I'll get onto it!

 

[bambino]

No broker deals with all the lenders, it's not that hard to do a bit of research yourself and phone around the banks. make sure you go to all the banks you could be leaving out the very one which will give you the cheapest deal.

 

[Petal]

As far as I know REA and Primafinance deal with all the banks except National Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide, who don't use brokers at all, so they're the only ones you need to contact directly.