Have you met a mortgage broker?
The other day, a friend told me about a mortgage broker she knows and I said “Huh? What does he do?”
A mortgage broker, I gathered later, is one who helps you to source for good deals on your mortgage. So, the part where we hate most – reading and finding out about what banks are currently offering and what the banks next to them are doing etc. will be effectively managed by this person. He will be able to advise us on what we need, what we should look out for and what we are looking at, amongst other things.
Consumers like me tend to look for banks well known in the market place, but apparently, there are some no-so-famous ones who offer better deals. We just need to go looking for it.
The beauty of this mortgage broker is that he is constantly combing the market for good deals that he can actually just recommend you the top 3. All you need to do is just to go through the deals with him and then choose the one you are most comfortable with. But being a little kiasu, I also called up some banks on my own and hence was able to compare better.
Apparently mortgage brokers have been in the market for a while now, especially in the US and other more developed markets. They are in Malaysia for about 3+ years now but they are not really big yet. Personally I think this is a good area to venture into since mortgages are not something any Tom, Dick and Harry can just pick up and do.
There are many things which one needs to look into e.g. interest rates, projections, capital repayments vs interest paid, loan duration, type of loans and their (dis)advantages etc. I find myself swimming in all the possibilities of how a mortgage can be structured to fulfill short term and long term obligations.
So, if you are ever in need of a mortgage broker, do contact me and I will help introduce you to him. Oh ya, this is only good if you are currently residing within the Klang Valley in Malaysia.
This post has one comment
December 3rd, 2009
I used money3.com.my to compare mortages (home loans). I was introduced to it by thestar.com.my’s Property. It saved my time (and phone bill and petrol cost!) a lot — rather than surfing banks’ websites (many of them); and call their contact numbers or go to their branches — just to know simple things, in order to compare which top mortagages to prioritise. It also helps to calculate monthly installment and so on, hence, I could do comparison better.
But sadly, the site is now down. Hey, online entrepreneurs, if this money3.com.my is still down, then it is your call! Malaysians need a user-friendly website to compare all mortagages in the market.