Pay up front
It’s not often I advise people to pay up front for anything, but the charges you pay when you take out your mortgage are one time you really should. Mortgage lenders are very good at coming up with a raft of ‘arrangement fees’ and the like, which come as a nasty shock when you’re already pondering a huge outlay for your home.
They then obligingly offer to ease the burden by simply putting that £500 or whatever onto your mortgage so you can pay it off a little each month. DON’T DO IT! If your mortgage is 5%, then over 25 years you’ll end up repaying around £870 on a repayment mortgage, and around £1700 on an interest only loan. Better to take the pain up front.
