I’m a first time buyer in the process of purchasing a property. I’m currently deciding between two brokers and would love to hear from anyone who has used either recently.
The two I’m considering are L&C Mortgages and Habito.
Both have been responsive so far and given me slightly different assessed borrowing figures. I’m not in a rush to formally instruct either just yet but want to make sure I’m making the right choice before I commit.
A few things I’d particularly love to hear about:
How was the experience?
How responsive and communicative were they once the process got underway?
Did anything go wrong and how did they handle it?
Did you use their recommended conveyancer and was that a good experience?
Anything you wish you’d known before instructing them?
Any experiences, positive or negative, would be really helpful. Thanks in advance
For a mortgage, the rate is the important thing. How fancy the app is, how smooth the comms, how nice they are, blah blah blah. It doesn’t really matter if they are going to cost you thousands and thousands in the long run.
We used a whole of market broker as my partner had multiple jobs with fluctuating income so just didn’t want the hassle of doing it myself.
I did try Habito and had no issues but went elsewhere.
It seems like a huge part but the bank will do a valuation and that has nothing to do with the broker. As long as they have access to good deals then that’s what you care about.
I chose local conveyancer. I’ve heard horror stories of online ones. For dropping off signed docs and worst comes to it, going to see them, local seemed better. But it doesn’t really matter who you choose, they’re all held up by others in the chain!
I’ve used L&C three times without any issues. In each case they got me a good deal and communication was excellent. I did try Habito once, but didn’t proceed with them; nothing major, but I preferred L&C as they seemed to be more straight forward / easy to deal with.
We tried Habito last time, and i cant remember exactly what the issue was, but we didn’t proceed with them.
We’ve just started the process of borrowing more for home improvements though L&C. They were great, although because its not a standard mortgage we need, they referred us to Propp.
would be really interested to hear what additions or changes in the Habito experience would tip the scales for you, especially those of you who ended up going with a different broker instead?
Hi Ed. It was a long time ago so things may have changed significantly in the meantime. I really liked the initial online experience of using Habito, but when it came down to the details, there was a lot of back and forth (don’t recall if it was email, or online chat) where I wasn’t sure of the answers that I was given. I needed a clearer explanation of fees / costs as re-mortgaging isn’t something you do everyday. The online flow / info could have been improved.
For me Habito was a very friendly service, however the agent missed key details about what I wanted, which tanked my confidence early on. I felt more confident going at it on my own, as it was a straight forward application.
I did have an issue with Moneybox years ago, when they applied with my lender for a different house, in a different down. This was peak 2021, so it delayed my exchange by a lot of weeks and I had to find new application fee money. In that case, it was in part because Moneybox were not familiar with N.Ireland. (All of our postcodes start with “BT”).
I bring this up, as I was hoping for a different experience with Habito. While missing the key details in my request, they also missed the cheapest provider, which was Danske. I suspect, like Moneybox, Habito are not all that close to the NI market.
Mortgage applications are stressful in my opinion, and my expectation is that a good broker will help reduce that. When dealing with a remote broker, it can sometimes feel like I’m doing the majority of the work instead.
If I’m honest, I wanted more of a handholding. Not saying that Habito couldn’t provide it, but one of those situations where I could sit down with someone, with multiple payslips and get the help and guidance that I wanted.
Habito gave me a better rate but a lower borrowing amount. The broker I went with got us what I needed in a very easy way.
A really good point, I’m definitely overthinking it - I think the decision was made for me earlier on today anyway as one of them essentially put me on the back burner while the other has been communicating with me to get me recommendations based on my requirements.
This feels solvable as we bring the experience into our app and can iterate on clarity
I like this framing. A North Star for us is that it should be considerably less effort when a Monzo customer remortgages with Habito, because we should be able to use the information we know by virtue of you banking with us. (A few steps to go before we can realise this though)
This is one of the things I found most interesting in our research (shameless plug for the blog post): for a high value transaction like this, some people (including you, it sounds like) want the reassurance of speaking to someone in person or at least on the phone. Habito is obviously a chat-first proposition, so it’s something we’re thinking about slightly further down the line.
Yes please! That’s how we can make sure we focus on the right improvements next
would be really interested to hear what additions or changes in the Habito experience would tip the scales for you, especially those of you who ended up going with a different broker instead?
