Writing on line

Motley Fool Mortgage Service

The Motley Fool Mortgage Service is conducted in partnership with London & Country Mortgage Brokers. This is essentially an advisory service as you cannot proceed to the application without involving London & Country, which is probably no bad thing.
The site covers discounted, variable, fixed, capped and offset mortgage types catering for the first time buyer, “next-time” buyer, remortgages and buy-to-let markets.
http://www.fool.co.uk/mortgages/compare-mortgages.aspx

Searching
Hit the Search All Mortgages button on the overhead menu towards the tail end of the best buys table on the home page. You can keep an open mind by selecting “all available mortgage types” or opt for a specific rate type (variable, fixed, capped, discount, capped).

The next step is to filter by loan features (e.g. no arrangement fee, flexi, offset, no early-repayment charge, no overhang, cashback etc.) and to specify the term of any special deal (e.g. fixed rate for two years).

Search results are listed in ascending order of initial rate but can be reordered by the “revert-to” rate after the concessionary period (usually the standard variable rate), APR and true-cost over a chosen period.

Further details can be obtained by hitting the adjacent More button. There is no application button as such, but the process is started by hitting Enquire which connects you to London & Country Mortgage Brokers.
http://www.fool.co.uk/mortgages/compare-mortgages.aspx

Information & Tools

The mortgage guide is eminently sensible and well up to the Fool’s high standard. Mortgage Calculators (affordability, cost and offset) are accessed from the grey overhead menu on the mortgage tables. The only oversight found was in the remortgage section which takes no account of the fact that the set-up costs of remortgaging are upfront whereas the benefits accrue gradually over time.

The results tables do not, however, show the arrangement fees and other costs which are often substantial on low initial-rate mortgages. These are only detectable by a discrepancy between the initial monthly payment shown in the table and the figure produced by the resident calculator.

For instance, the results table showed an initial payment of £1,265.62 p.m. for a £200k, 5.69% fixed rate offering from National Counties - whereas the Fool’s own calculator came up with £1,250.97. This implies that an upfront fee of £2,341.96 has been added to the loan.

It is not easy to evaluate best buys, as the tables do not give access to the fact sheets, which would enable you to balance the initial rate against the up-front fees. Nevertheless, the loans did seem to offer good value for money
http://www.fool.co.uk/mortgages/compare-mortgages.aspx

Verdict

A smooth mortgage website with comfortable navigability and good supporting literature, but lacking a little in transparency. Benefit of the doubt goes to the Fool.
http://www.fool.co.uk/mortgages/compare-mortgages.aspx