One of the top mortgage advisers in Essex

If you were to go directly to your bank for a mortgage, they’re only ever going to let you know the best deals they’ve got available. However, we have access to the whole market for first charge mortgages. We will see which options are available and find the most appropriate deals for you.

On top of that, because we work within an estate agent’s office, we have a finger on the pulse of what estate agents want. Banks are on the outside looking in – but we can really help you understand how the property market works to get you that perfect home.

I see us as project managers – although our main focus is the mortgage, we keep an eye on other services to make it as hassle-free as possible. Moving house is known to be one the most stressful life events.

The bank is the first point of call for many people looking at buying a house. They presume that the banks will support loyal customers and offer preferential deals. But that’s not really the case. Every single bank has different criteria. Some will assess self-employed income differently to other lenders. Some might disregard your bonus, overtime and commission, whereas other lenders will take 100% of them.

As brokers, we look at which lenders are going to offer you better interest rates or allow you to borrow a higher amount. A broker can simply access more options than you will get from a single bank.

This will vary massively depending on which brokerage you speak to. I’ve been doing mortgages for nine years (at the time of recording in October 2022) and have friends who run their own mortgage businesses. Every one of them runs things slightly differently.

Here at Bolt Mortgages we act as project managers. We start by sitting down with you for a conversation about your mortgage options. We also help you find a solicitor. When looking at buying a property we help do the research upfront, and we also do a lot of the backend chasing right through to the final stages.

With the market being so busy right now, a lot of the organisations in the property process don’t have the time to deal with you on a day-to-day basis. So we’ve built a process where we specialise in helping you get the mortgage agreed. We get everything sent over to the lender; we liaise with the estate agents, the mortgage companies and get the solicitor sorted out for you.

Then once everything’s with the lender we have a dedicated concierge team that manages the process all the way up to the point where you get the keys. We take all the legwork away from you.

With regards to the products we offer, we help people with remortgages, people wanting to improve cashflow for investment purposes, First Time Buyers and people looking at moving home. On top of mortgages we also help with protection needs. It’s exciting to buy a house, but we must make sure that once you’re in, you can stay in there regardless of what life throws at you. We’ll make sure you have insurance in place to protect you and your family for life.

So my personal opinion, based on working with a lot of estate agents, is that as soon as you have any inkling about buying a property, you should give us a call. Whether it’s in the next month, six months or 12 months, it’s always worth having a conversation with a mortgage broker sooner rather than later.

Often there’s a bit of preparation that needs to be done upfront – such as saving a deposit, looking at your credit report and potentially improving your position.

Certainly speak to a mortgage broker before you go out and start looking at properties, because that gives you the best chance to get your offer accepted. It also means you’re not wasting time looking at properties that are way out of your budget.

Once you’ve seen a house you like, you start imagining having your friends over for parties and imagining your kids playing in the garden… you really see yourself in that property. And to have that wrenched away because you’ve not spoken to a mortgage broker up front is very disheartening.

Essex is where I’ve been brought up from a young age, and the estate agents we work with specialise in this area, but we deal with people all over the UK. We can help you buy a property anywhere – because we can work with you on Teams, Zoom calls or over the phone. We do things the same way even with people locally, so we can help wherever you are.

There’s many different factors to that, because Essex is such a big area. There’s many benefits and lots of great places to live. I personally live not far from Southend in Canvey Island. From here it only takes 30 to 45 minutes on the train to get into Fenchurch Street for central London so we get a lot of commuters moving here. In the south east of Essex you will find cheaper house prices and it’s still easily commutable for your day-to-day work. As you look closer to the London postcodes prices will increase.

There’s also a lot to do in and around Essex. Southend is a popular seaside town and Chelmsford is now a new city where there’s a lot going on. You can also easily take a day trip to London and there’s plenty to see and do all over the county.

No, not at all. We call your initial conversation with us an “initial fee free strategy call.” We believe that when you’re looking to buy property, you need a strategy to get yourself prepared. Everything we do upfront is completely free of charge.

In the initial strategy call we will go through all the costs involved, such as solicitors, stamp duty, the cost of your monthly mortgage repayments and how much you can borrow. If you want to buy a property at that point we can have a conversation about getting an Agreement in Principle so you can go out and start looking.

If you’re not ready yet we can put a plan together over the next three, six or 12 months so that when you’re in a position to make an offer, you can move forward straight away.

If you’ve reached this point of the podcast, the chances are that you’re looking at buying a property over the next few months or so. I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to speak to a good broker, even if it’s months in advance. That way you can get yourself in a position to be mortgage ready and start looking at properties.