Customers seeking advice for mortgage debt up 50%
Article source: John Bakie - www.ifaonline.co.uk
The mortgage market situation has caused a lot of confusion to mortgage customers to say the least. Most of them have no idea where to turn for advice or which of the mortgage deals that are popping up in the market they should take up. The number of mortgage customers seeking advice has therefore skyrocketed, going up by about 50% in just three months according to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB).
The Citizens Advice Bureau has as a result asked the mortgage lenders to ensure that they offer the best advice to their customers to ensure that everyone gets through the current situation with as much ease as possible. The goal now is for mortgage borrowers to secure suitable re-mortgage deals for now and the future.
At the same time, mortgage customers are being asked to be careful when looking for new deals. The most important thing however is for them to act fast to secure a fixed rate mortgage deal to save themselves from further losses that are coming with the ever increasing mortgage rates.
Being critical of the available deals is also very important because that way, a mortgage borrower will know all that a certain deal holds in store for them including the total cost of the mortgage when they consider such expenses as the mortgage arrangement, the cost of lawyers and exit fees as well as penalties that lie in wait if a customer decides to pull out of a deal.
The current market situation also calls for the mortgage customers to be more alert than ever because even though the choice of mortgage deals in the market seem to be limited considering that so many of the deals have been pulled out of the market, a lot of other deals are coming up to suit the market situation; mortgage customers have to be on the look out for such deals in order to get secure the one that is right for them.
The challenge now lies in finding a mortgage lender who will see the mortgage borrowers through their quest for suitable mortgage deals especially keeping in mind the fact that mortgage lenders have become stricter in choosing who they lend to in their bid to be more risk averse.
Besides increasing their lending rates, tracker charges and pulling deals out of the market, mortgage lenders are not showing any kind of leniency with the best deals going to those borrowers with 25% equity of their homes and more. At the end of the day, everyone is feeling the pinch of the financial crisis and this calls for a unified solution to the problem. The Citizens Advice Bureau is specifically calling on the lenders to be patient with their mortgage customers, imploring them not to rush to the courts for settling of mortgage debt.
Most inquiries as noted by the Citizens Advice Bureau are the unsecured loan enquiries standing at 35% while the secured loans and mortgage enquiries stand at just 5%. David Harker, CAB’S Chief Executive has called upon borrowers to seek advice from CAB as well as other reliable debt free agencies as this will be the only way to ensure that they have the right information to make the right moves towards being debt free as well as securing the best of the available mortgage deals.
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