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Our mortgage best buys tool lists 1,000s of deals and rates from different lenders.
Filter your search by the type and length of mortgage deal you want.
See all deals available to brokers and crucially direct-only deals too.
Our guides explain the mortgage basics:
Boost mortgage chances. With 18 helpful tips.
Find a cheap mortgage. Either via broker or direct.
First-time buyer guide. Help getting on the ladder.
Remortgage guide. If you need a new deal.
Mortgage types. Fixes and variables, for example.
Mortgage overpayments. Can you save £1,000s?
Our free mortgage calculators can help you with the sums:
Basic mortgage calc. See how much a deal will cost you.
Compare fixed mortgages. See which deal is cheaper.
How much can you borrow. From a mortgage lender.
Saving for a deposit. How much you'll need to put aside.
Overpay mortgage. See how much overpaying could save you.
We've got plenty of guides to help you:
First-time buyer PDF. Our 53-page, step-by-step guide.
Boost your mortgage chances. Using our 18 tips .
Lifetime ISAs. A free way to boost your deposit.
Stamp Duty. How it works and whether you'll pay it.
Shared ownership. An option if you're struggling to buy.
When your current mortgage deal ends you'll need to think about taking out a new one (you can normally lock in a new deal between three and six months in advance). We've got plenty of help:
Remortgage guide. Our 58-page, step-by-step PDF.
Getting ready to remortgage. How to get prepared.
Should you remortgage? What to consider.
Product transfers. Consider a new deal from your current lender.
Interest rates on mortgages remain much higher than they were a few years ago (when deals were as cheap as 1-2%).
Despite some periods of rate cuts since then, there have also been spells of rate increases – with the cheapest mortgages now starting from around 4.2%.
You can view today's rates in our mortgage best buy table, which includes all deals available to brokers – plus direct-only deals.
See today's mortgage rates.
Higher interest rates and cost-of-living means more people are struggling to pay their mortgage. Still others are stuck on their current mortgage deal and unable to move even they want to and have tried (in which case you might be what's known as a 'mortgage prisoner').
We've got guides which might help:
"Just going to your existing bank or building society for a mortgage means you’ll only be offered its products. There's nothing wrong with that as a benchmark, but you really want to get the best deal from across the mortgage market.
"That's where a good mortgage broker can help. I often favour sorting your finances out yourself. But as mortgages are such a big single transaction, getting professional help can be a boon."
Below we've featured some fantastic success from MSE users who've used these guides to save money on their mortgage. If you've found success using our tools or guides, let us know via email.
"I took out a 25-year mortgage, paying a rate of 6%. But by overpaying the mortgage, I managed to clear it 12 years early and saved £35,000 in the process."
"I used MSE to find a find-year fix a number of years back and again two years ago to find a cheap fix at 1.2%."
"Read MSE newsletter which said mortgage rates were getting cheaper. Our new mortgage hadn't started, so our mortgage broker switched us to a better rate, saving us £2,400 over five years."
This is the percentage of the property value you're loaned as a mortgage – in other words, the proportion you're borrowing.
To calculate this, simply subtract your deposit/equity as a percentage of the property value from 100%. So if you've a £60,000 deposit on a £300,000 home, that's a 20% deposit. This means you owe 80% – so the LTV is 80%.
Read more on how to calculate your LTV.
Your LTV has a big impact on the kind of interest rate you might be able to get on a mortgage. That's because mortgage and remortgage rates are priced in the LTV bands – and the bigger deposit/equity you have, the lower the interest rate will be.
See what the main LTV bands are in our How much can I borrow? guide.
Yes, your 'creditworthiness' is one the two big factors which dictate whether you'll be accepted for a mortgage (the other being your 'affordability') – and one of the main ways a lender judges your creditworthiness is by looking at what's on your credit report.
As a poor credit history can scupper your chances of getting a mortgage, before any application it's best to check your credit file (for free) and then read up on how to get your credit report into better shape.
In a word, no. A 'mortgage-in-principle' – or an 'agreement-in-principle' – is a conditional offer from a lender saying you may be accepted, based on a quick check of your income and, possibly, your credit file.
In a heated property market, you are likely to be asked for one by a seller before they will accept an offer. In addition, for first-time buyers, it boosts confidence they'll be accepted. But it offers no guarantees.
Do be mindful that too many of these checks in a short space of time could harm your credit rating.
When applying for a mortgage, you've got two ways of going about it: applying directly yourself, or applying via a mortgage broker. If you're mortgage-savvy, then you might consider applying directly. But for many, applying through a mortgage broker is the most sensible route.
On top of guidance for those who find sorting a mortgage tough, brokers have details of most lenders' acceptance criteria (not usually publicly available), which they can use to place your application with a lender more likely to accept you. Plus, there are some top deals that can only be accessed through brokers.
All mortgage offers last for a fixed amount of time. In the case of major mortgage lenders, an offer tends to last for six months. With smaller brokers, offers might only last as long as three months.
Interest-only mortgages still exist, though these days they are the preserve of higher earners with a large deposit who can provide proof of being able to pay off the entire mortgage balance as a lump sum in future.
For most borrowers, a capital repayment mortgage is the way to go. With this kind of mortgage, you'll be repaying both the capital you've borrowed and the interest due each month (rather than just the interest, as is the case with interest-only), meaning your debt will be cleared by the time the mortgage term ends.
For more on the difference between capital repayment and interest-only, see our What mortgage to choose? guide.
Mortgage deals typically fall into two broad categories: fixes and variables. Read up on how both work in our What mortgage to choose? guide.
Where you're looking to 'fix' your mortgage, you'll need to decide how long you'd like to fix for. For example, two, three, five, 10 years? This is a really important decision to make, and one that – if you get it wrong – could be very costly.
As there are several factors to take into account when working out how long to fix for, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Our What mortgage to choose? guide takes you through what needs considering.
Most mortgage deals allow overpayments – typically by up to 10% of the outstanding mortgage balance each year.
Overpaying could mean you save £1,000s, even £10,000s, in interest, and reduce how long it takes to pay off your mortgage. Yet while overpaying works out for some, for others it's more sensible to save instead. Our Should you overpay your mortgage? guide helps you decide.
Yes, there are various ways of improving your chances of being accepted for a mortgage. These range from quick fixes like getting on the electoral roll to gradually bolstering your credit report.
We've got 18 top tips on how to boost your mortgage chances.
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