We caught an interesting bit on Fair Go on Monday night. In summary a young couple had received advice and a loan offer from a Mortgage Adviser and that Adviser subsequently charged them a fee....we'd like to clear up our position on providing a free service.
When Adam set out to create My Mortgage in 2012 one of the cornerstones of our philosophy was providing a free service and we stick by that. In the first 3 years we did not charge a single client and in the past 12 months we have billed three clients for our services who were professional developers and we provided specialist lending for them which we are not paid from those lenders for.
99.99% of our business is done with the main banks in New Zealand and they pay us for providing the service that we do. If you'd like to learn more about how we get paid and how our process works this link has a lot more detail.
The article centred around some fine print in a disclosure document which the clients signed. We believe in keeping our disclosure process simple and anyone can request a disclosure document from us at any stage. No fine print in there, just the details required as Registered Financial Adviser's and everything else you need to know about us is on this website or supplied through the application process. We like to be as transparent as possible.
There was also mention in the article about a preference towards advisers not receiving commissions but instead charging a fee... Like any business we have to get paid and we think the current model is great for consumers. The risk of charging a fee is that price becomes a barrier to people getting the best - we're in a rare position where the best advice comes for free.
For example most people (ourselves included!) will fly economy because the cost of First Class is so high. We're fortunate that in our industry the "First Class" of service is free to you. The risk would be that if you had to pay for our service you may wind up with the equivalent of a poorly maintained Cessna and find your mortgage not performing at it's best.
This could be in the form of being stuck with just one loan provider promoting their product and risk not getting specialist advice, or even providers just protecting their own margins rather than having us fighting for the best deal and putting what's best for you first!
If you want to deal with a company who is upfront, will give you the best advice and negotiate the best options for you then contact us today.
We've also got a bunch of resources on:
Improving your Home Loan Structure
Repaying your Home Loan faster
Having the right Home Loan for a Rental Property
Buying your first home
Simply drop us an email and we'll send you this information or arrange a meeting with us to discuss the right option for you.
Adam, Claire and the My Mortgage Team