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We hope you don’t mind us sending you our band new newsletter, which you have recieved because you are a customer of Direct Mortgage Centre or have been in the past.

We promise we wont bombard you with information but we do want to bring news and stories that we think will be relevant and interesting to you, such as;

• Changes in the Bank of England Base rate,
• House Price index changes
• Facebooks new property App
• Does your Home Insurance protect against trace and access
• Changes in Energy Prices
• and much much more…

We don’t want to annoy you, so if you really dont want to hear from us, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the link in the Newsletter, if you are happy to hear from us, great, we do appreciate it.  You can always unsubscribe in the future.

This month sees the launch of Property Place, the world’s first ever property app on Facebook. Previously in beta, the full version of Property Place officially launches today, complete with over 400,000 properties.

Take a look at Facebooks Property Place and let us know whether you would use this service to Sell or Let your home.

Trace and Access – Covers the cost of tracing water or oil leaks within the home, including damage caused while finding the leak, up to £5,000. Includes the replacement or repair of any walls, floors, or ceilings (including fixtures and fittings attached to them).

Other important factors to consider when choosing your home insurance should include;

Home Emergency – Home Emergency provides cover if you or a member of you family have a home emergency. A qualified person will come to your home to carry out any necessary emergency repairs. Home emergencies are events which need action to make your home safe and secure, avoid damage to your home, make your home fit to live in and to restore essential services if they fail.

Student Belongings – Contents temporarily removed from the home whilst attending full time education are covered up to £5,000 in total (£1,000 for a single article, pair or set). Provided it is your intention to return the items to your home, then the insurance covers the loss or damage to contents in any building in the UK where you are living whilst attending full time education.

Theft of Oil – Our buildings cover, covers your home and it’s permanent fixtures and fittings including permanently connected service tanks and central heating oil tanks.

Landlords – Rent Guarantee – Cover is provided for unpaid rent in excess of one month up to 12 months or until vacant possession is gained, whichever happens first. Once vacant possession is obtained and the property is in a suitable condition to be re-let, benefit will continue to be paid at a rate of 50% of the monthly rent for a further three months or until such a time as the property is re-let, whichever happens first. Qualifying conditions apply.

Direct Mortgage Centre are well placed to research the market for you and ensure that you get a policy which will meet your requirements.  Give us a call on 0800 566 8540

You might hear on the 1st Thursday of each month that the Bank of England base rate is unchanged, so you think fine, my variable rate mortgage is ok for another month, well you might just be wrong.

Just because the Bank of England isnt increasing it’s rates it doesnt mean the lenders aren’t increasing theirs, in fact the rates which are sold to you have been increasing over the last few months.

Here at Direct Mortgage Centre we have decided to monitor these rates and each week will sample rates for customers buying a new home and re-mortgaging.  We will look at rates available with different deposit sizes and publish these in a chart so you can see what is really happneing with interest rates.

To ensure fairness when we sample we use the same criteria each week although sometimes their may be slight differences in the available rates.  These charts are intended as a guide to how mortgage interest rates are moving.

How does this affect you?  When should you switch to a different mortgage? Fixed or Tracker?  Why not give us a call FREE on 0800 566 8540 and talk through your options with one of our adviser.

A few years ago, self certified mortgages were abundant, almost every lender was happy to lend you money without the need to check your income.  Some lenders used a system called ‘Fast Track’ this is where the lender didn’t check your income but could request proof at a later date.

Self Certified mortgages and Fast Track are now a distant memory, each mortgage must be backed up with proof of your income, in fact the government are pushing lenders in to ensuring that they check affordability on each and every mortgage.

This isn’t a bad thing, why would you apply for a mortgage that you couldn’t afford.

Anyway, back to the reason of this article, proving your income when applying for a mortgage today.  What do you need to provide;

If you are employed with just the one job, then your last 3 pay slips is usually acceptable to the lender, some would like to see bank statements showing your salary credited to your account.

If you are self employed, no longer are most lenders willing to accept your last 2 or 3 years accounts, even those audited by yor accountant, be expected tp obtain your last 3 years SA302 from the Inland Revenue.  An SA302 is a document that the Inland Revenue generates to confirm the figures you have declared on your Tax Return.

If you are an employed director of a limited company with a significant shareholding, usually more than 20%, the lenders will certainly classify you as Self Employed and will want to see confirmation of your basic salary, dividends, company accounts and some are now requesting that you provide your own SA302′s as well.

So if your thinking of applying for a mortgage, be prepared to provide extensive proof of your income and if your self employed or a company director why not call the Inland Revenue and request 3 years SA302 early.

I spoke with Halifax today discussing clients who are already with Halifax for their mortgage with rates that have expired.  I was suprised to learn that over 80% of Halifax mortgage customers whose deal had come to an end are sitting on the Halifax’s variable rate which will usually be 3.50% or 3.99%.

Now 3.50% isn’t a bad rate, but for those customers with lots of equity there are much better rates around and you should seriously consider switching your mortgage,

Imagine this scenario –

You are currently sitting on Halifax variable rate at 3.50%, say your mortgage payment is £800 per month, we can look at other mortgages for oyu and possibly reduce that rate by say 0.50%.  What if you reduced your rate but kept your monthly payments the same, how many years would you knock off your mortgage with potentially massive savings in interest over the term.

What about those of you who don’t want to go through the hassle of providing pay slips, proof of address, proof of identity etc, well we can offer a mortgage product switching service, where we can secure a fixed rate for you now whilst fixed rates are probably at the lowest they are likely to be.

Finally, thjose with little or no equity, which ubfortunatly some of you will have experienced.  No problems there either, we can still find another fixed rate for you.

For anyone wanting to switch reates there are som emortgages with no fees at all, so we really can find something to match your preferences.

Think about this – your on the variable rate at the moment whilst rates are low and likely to stay low for the near future, possibly up to the end of 2013. When will you switch to a fixed rate?  when rates start to increase, say the end of 2013?  What do you think will happen to Fixed rates if gthe base rate i increasing?  Yes, fixed rates will no doubt increase, so should you be securing a fixed rate now whilst they are low or wait till they start to increase?  Some 5 year fixed rates are now below 4%.

If you want to discuss through the options open to you, please give us a call on 0800 566 8540 or email or why not use our Live Chat facility.

As always each of the options are subject to status and mortgages are secured against your home, which means you miust keep up repayments or your home could be at risk.