Youāre in the other 50% Iād guess
Iām in the other 50% too
Just as a bit of polish,
If you know the start date of my mortgage already, and on this first screen I enter 5 years, the second screen should have the start date + 5 years pre-selected. At the moment it just shows today plus two years.
Appreciate as youāve said, deals arenāt always exact - but it feels like it would be helpful for this screen to be in the right ballpark automatically.
EDIT: Actually, thinking about this more, this might not be possible. Depends on what data youāre getting from the credit agencies and if the deal start date (not the mortgage start date) is available?
Youāre right that this isnāt super easy as we only get partial data here!
At a high level:
- We ask everyone their current deal length
- If you know your deal end, we let you put that in yourself as it will be most accurate
- If you donāt know your deal end, then weāll need use start date + deal length
- Weāll look at your deal length and the start date on your record and see if it looks like it could be a sensible start date
- If it looks sensible (e.g. youāve got a 5 year fixed and we see the record began 3 years ago) then we show this to you to accept or change
- If it doesnāt look sensible (e.g. youāve got a 2 year fixed and we see the record began 5 years ago) then we will ask you to provide your start date!
This is a great example of something that took a lot of careful thinking for a surprisingly complex flow - but we wanted to make sure we help as many people set reminders irrespective of which data points they had to hand!
Yep. Mentioned a few posts up
Helpful and petrifying.
Itās got 4 years to come down!
Hi @HB , have you considered also displaying the impact of increased rates on mortgages that have a regular overpayment? i.e. the amount of capital repaid would be reduced and the mortgage would take longer to pay off ā¦
Weāve given some of these things a bit of thought! Thereās definitely some complexity trying to cater to a more advanced overpayment calculator, like:
- With higher rates, do you want to keep the regular overpayment the same?
- Do we show the impact of the change immediately or at a point in the future?
- Whatās the impact on time to pay off, interest saved?
- How do we help you compare results?
None of these are insurmountable design challenges but one thing weāve seen is that lots of people think about their mortgages in slightly different ways so it is a balance to build functionality. We do have some pretty cool exploration underway for future enhancements to our calcs though!
Side note: I think the time to repay with an overpayment under various interest rates doesnāt vary too much, at least compared to interest savings (assuming youāre overpaying to reduce balance, rather than term)
Thanks for the detailed response. Itās really heartening to know that you are giving this so much thought. The recent changes are great in providing a better understanding of how my mortgage is looking, but there is also a lot more that could be done.
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The credit bureau figures are 1 or 2 months outdated so forecasting todayās (and future) value would be amazing ā¦
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A visualisation would really bring this home for meā¦ the timeline is ok, but I would find a chart of some sort much more informativeā¦
Looking forward to what else you have to bring
Is there a way we can edit the starting mortgage amount? Monzo is out by a few thousand, but I think thatās possibly because I overpaid from the very beginning.
Hi Shelly (and welcome!) - thereās no way currently to manually edit the starting balance.
Did you add any of the mortgage product fees on top at the outset? This can sometimes account for part of the difference even if folks donāt consider that as the mortgage borrowing.
To understand better, are you looking for the ability to edit so that the numbers look ācleanerā, to improve the progress estimate, or something else?
Weāve got some changes on the way that rethink how we showcase progress!
Thanks Harry! Nope, didnāt add any mortgage fees or products, paid those up front!
Mostly so things look cleaner and for the progress too.
Amazing thank you!
Iāve been back playing with this part of the app again, particularly the interest calculator which has been really useful!
If rates were to stick around where they are now, weād need to find another Ā£600 per month vs where we are now.
Ultimately it wonāt be an issue since our little one will be out of childcare by then and thatās like paying for a second mortgage in itself, but we still want to gradually ramp up our payments.
With that in mind, Iāve stuck a recurring event in my calendar to increase our repayments by Ā£50 every 3 months.
Currently it ends when our deal ends, but overpaying our mortgage was always the plan, so hopefully salary increases will mean we can continue beyond the end of our current deal term - but thatās really getting into crystal ball territory.
Will have to see how this works out as rates may well go up further or even come down a bit, but as one of my old teachers used to say, if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.
I think similarly to others, my only issue with this feature is the data is inaccurate.
I understand why it is inaccurate but itās still annoying non the less.
It would be really nice for me to be able to manually update the monthly payment for instance. Itās obviously not zero and I know what it is but itās frustrating not to be able to override it.
Hey Chris! Now that is interesting - is it a relatively new mortgage (or anything that might make it less common (like interest only, multiple parts)?
Generally speaking weāve seen that monthly payment value to be pretty reliable (although we donāt get pence, only Ā£s) except where a few lenders bundle some forms of overpayments in the monthly payment, so it might be that HSBC isnāt correctly reporting your mortgage to TransUnion.
You can see what they hold by requesting your statutory credit report here - Get Your Statutory Credit Report. I presume it is showing a Ā£0 monthly payment?
Hey Harry!
Yeap itās a mortgage taken out two months ago. Iāve since made one payment and am very close to making my second. I can see on TransUnion that itās showing the incorrect balance e.g. itās not including my payment from last month (the first payment for this mortgage).
This is why I mentioned it would be good for me to be able to manually update these values. Otherwise it seems that due to HSBCs reporting this feature will always be a month or two behind and therefore the value will always be wrong
There is generally a 4-6 week lag in reporting so the chances are the figures will be wrong. Personally I would be happy to see the forecasted figure based on my stated monthly payment or burn down rateā¦ Monzo makes forecasts for āleft to spendā , so this wouldnāt b so much differentā¦
OK - my assumption here is that you probably should see your mortgage payment updated to reflect the correct monthly payment once your second payment lands (especially if your first monthly payment was different - that might be how HSBC handles it).
Would you mind letting me know if thatās the case once your second update hits? As @caribo mentioned, that normally takes a month or two as we wait for HSBC to compile at the end of the month and send over to TransUnion to process - not as quick as youāre used to with Monzo!
Iāve got you at the top of my list already if we launch this functionality! Thereās two buckets of things to consider:
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How might we show progress for things yet to happen? (like recent contractual payments)
It feels a bit more of a power feature for those looking for a view of ānet worthā and a bit of a UX challenge, but not insurmountable. It would make the updated balance closer to what youād see on your lenderās platform but still not match up exactlyā¦ so doesnāt a feel universally better option . -
What data do we believe customers can change and what impact does that have?
The backbone of our data is using balance history and monthly payments to forecast the pay-down of the mortgage. Meanwhile we donāt get an interest rate from TransUnion (although we estimate one in the background) so we believe it is reasonable to ask if folks want to give a specific value.
That feels less clear for monthly payment because:
- Should we use a user-provided value for all our calculations? What if they get it wrong and it completely throws off results?
- What if we see the monthly payment change in the background? E.g. your rate has gone up or your term has changed?
Weāve got some really cool stuff underway which we think has more value for everyone but in the meantime Iām certainly open to discussion of an elegant way to handle this!
I donāt know about others but you know how much my mortgage is, you know my ālatestā balance, you know my contractual monthly payment, you know my monthly over payment and you know my interest rate. So unless something has changed in the last few weeks the estimated balance will be pretty accurate. The occasional lump sum payment will be an issue, but I will know about it and I will know it will be corrected in under 6 weeksā¦
I would think that it you take outliers out of the payment history the underlying trend would be fairly consistent too? Or is this being too optimistic?
Admitted, how you show it, and how people perceive it is a challengeā¦ I anticipate seeing a burn down chart , a bit like the trends spending charts with future estimates over a period of time (maybe 12 months?)