In this article we introduce a couple of suggestions for when you are looking for a mortgage.

Before going to a broker or obtaining advice on mortgages make sure you do some research on the subject. These sites provide useful information moneysupermarket.com, moneyextra.com, moneynet.co.uk and of course this site.

When you are in front of an advisor or broker always ask them if they look at the whole market or just a small panel of selected lenders. You do have to be specific when asking this question, as a loophole in a certain FSA regulation allows brokers to claim they look at the whole market when they don’t, as long as they review the top deals every two months. So to get a straight answer ask them “Can you right now source a mortgage from all available UK mortgage lenders?” You may feel quite harsh posing this question but if you cut yourself off from some of the market the chances are you might not get the best mortgage deal.

Always make sure you ask where the broker makes their commission. Often lenders pay brokers a commission. However some will also charge you a fee and I think if you can you should avoid this as there are plenty of brokers out there that don’t charge you an additional fee.

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