What are the best mortgage rates? Good question. The best rates or the best ‘rate’ are kind of a subjective thing because they depend on your personal situation.

For instance, the best ‘rate’ at the moment might be the Bank of Scotland Tracker at 4.55% but that may as well be pie in the sky if you are a first time buyer. Why? Simple, its because there is an LTV restriction on that of 50%. Which means that if you are buying a house for €400,000 you can get this rate only if your mortgage is €200,000 or less.

So What’s the point in communicating to a First Time Buyer the ‘best mortgage rate’ if its one that they are not really likely to qualify for? Naturally a broker will jump at this rate on behalf of their client if they are anywhere near qualifying for it however the percentage of First Time Buyers putting down a 50% deposit is surely quite small.

So in answer to the question I always here of ‘What is the best rate’ or ‘what rates do you have’ the answer is: we can get you what ever rates are on the market, and we will aim to get you the best one available that fits your situation and for which you qualify.

In mortgages its not always a case that people qualify for the loan they want, most people are not out there trying to borrow beyond their capacity and the banks are not keen on that either and thus have very prudent lending rules. However, sometimes there are mortgage rates that exist only for loans of €400,000 or more, in that case a person who has an income which means they can’t raise that level of finance may as well not even look at it. Its a rate that they cannot obtain due to the criteria, and that’s primarily what it all boils down to, criteria and numbers, it’s also the main reason why last year 57% of residential mortgages went through a broker.

Another thing to consider is the people with no mortgage, they might qualify for a loan of 400k but only want 50k in order to put on an extension to the house. For these clients they qualify for the loan but they dont’ need it so again its out of spectrum of choice.

So when you are looking for a mortgage talk to your broker (obviously I hope its somebody here at Irish Mortgage Brokers but it doesn’t have to be!) and ask them to go through your situation and to tell you what they feel the best rates are, then go research the market a yourself, this way you can make your decision with absolute confidence.

The Internet means that a lot of the financial information is readily available, that doesn’t mean that loans appear out of thin air and dont’ require work though, so once you have made the decision on what lender or rate to go for the job is not anywhere near done and thats an area where the strengths of a broker come in to play as well, we deal with specific processing centres and have direct contacts in each of them, because of this we can get a mortgage organised with much less hassle and work than Joe Public can do for themselves, and for the most part there is no fee involved.

There is a bias in this article because we are brokers, however we are biased because we believe avidly in what we do, and we help literally thousands of people every year with decisions that are not easy to make, we do this in a way that benefits them in the long term and that is why we are the fastest growing brokerage in the country even during the present property downturn, it is also the reason why we have been shortlisted yet again for the MoneyMate Mortgage Broker of the Year 2008.

We look forward to being of service.