Review contents
Habito makes mortgages and buying a home much easier – gone are the stressful days so many have experienced! They’ll find the best mortgage for you, all for free. And, if you’re buying a home they can handle the whole process for you. It’s all online, and in your own time, with amazing service. A huge 5 stars from us.
In the complicated world of mortgages and home buying, getting some professional help is a great idea – there’s a lot of money on the line, and getting the wrong mortgage could end up costing you thousands of pounds extra every year.
That’s where Habito comes in, they’re here to help you find the right mortgage for you – there’s over 20,000 mortgages out there and Habito searches them all.
And if you’re buying a home, they can handle the whole process for you too – that’s all the legal stuff (called conveyancing), and building surveys, and all the other stressful stuff too. Plus, there’s someone actually managing it for you, giving you updates along the way – it’s such a good idea, why hasn’t anyone done this before?!
You can learn lots more about that on the Habito website¹.
As if that wasn’t enough, their mortgage advice is completely free, and the optional home buying service comes in at a reasonable price.
Their service is all online via their website which works on your phone too. You chat to them online, via their website (live-chat) and they’ll walk you through the whole process. Any questions, just ask. And if you want to chat over the phone or email you can – whatever suits you.
The great thing about this type of service is it fits around your busy life. They will update you and you can reply in your own time. There’s no need to book meetings with brokers in stuffy suits like the olden days.
Let’s dive into everything a bit more and see if Habito and an online mortgage broker it’s right for you.
With Habito you can be sure you're getting the right mortgage deal, and all for free. Plus if you're buying a home, they can handle everything for you too.
If you're looking to work out how much you can borrow for a mortgage, Habito has got a really cool mortgage calculator¹.
It's really quick to use and uses data from real mortgages to give you an indication of how much you can borrow, and then shows you the mortgages you might be able to get and what the monthly repayments would be. How good is that?!
If you're just looking for how much you can borrow for a mortgage, and not ready to speak to a mortgage advisor just yet, Habito has got an awesome mortgage-in-principle tool.
It uses data from real mortgage deals to give you an indication of how much you can borrow, plus monthly repayments and what the interest rate will be – which you can send to your email, save as a PDF, or print out.
It’s super handy if you’re looking at properties as most estate agents will ask for one to show you’re a serious buyer.
It only takes a few minutes too (and free). Here’s where to get a mortgage-in-principle¹.
It’s pretty easy to find the right mortgage for you with Habito. First, you’ll fill out some personal details on their website, such as who you are and some info about the mortgage you’re after.
Then a fully qualified mortgage advisor will review your information and may need to confirm some details with you.
After that, Habito compares mortgages by searching every deal out there (this is often called the ‘whole market’) to find the best deal for you.
You’ll soon get a message from your personal Habito mortgage advisor who has found the perfect mortgage for you, will run through the details and any questions you have, and then if you’re happy, handle all the paperwork for you – you don’t need to lift a finger. All for free, How good is that?
If you’re just after a mortgage – here’s where to get started with Habito¹.
If you’re buying a home rather than just switching your mortgage deal, Habito offers a great alternative to doing it yourself (phew, what a relief!). Buying a home can often be a complicated and stressful process, but they handle every step for you.
Traditionally once you’ve found your new dream home, you would then have to find your own conveyancer (the person who does all the legal stuff), and arrange a building survey (or sometimes a few) on the property, as well as sort the mortgage yourself or find a mortgage advisor to sort the mortgage too.
You’d then effectively project manage all of these people, plus the mortgage lender, and the estate agent, to keep things moving along and running smoothly – which we’re sorry to say, rarely happens!
Habito brings it all under one roof (excuse the pun). Which means the work and stress is done for you, Habito handles everything! Not to mention all the time you’ll save too.
They’ll update you on progress, while you just put the kettle on and put your feet up. Well, perhaps you will have a few cups of tea – buying a home can take a long time!
But anyway, you get on with life, Habito handles the admin.
It’s so great, some of us here have used them to buy our own home, and found the whole process so easy.
And apparently, they’re the only company who have the right licences to do all of this for you in one place. Learn more about this on the Habito website¹.
To get the mortgage it’s completely free! That’s amazing as you’d typically expect to pay around £200 to £1,000 to a traditional mortgage advisor. Habito gets paid from the mortgage lender when you get your mortgage (as all mortgage advisors do).
For the home-buying service (which also includes getting the best mortgage for you), prices start at around £2,000. It all depends on how much the value of the property is that you want to buy. It scales up slowly, and for a £600,000 property it’s £3,000.
However, this isn’t an additional cost that you pay just to use Habito. You would still have to pay legal fees and survey fees when you buy a home – it’s just part of the process of buying a home wherever you are in the country with whoever you decide to use to help buy it.
So if you were managing it yourself, expect to pay up to £1,500 for a conveyancer (or solicitor, they’re the same when it comes to property), but it can be cheaper – it depends how complicated your purchase is.
And then up to £1,000 for a building survey, but can be much cheaper if it’s a newer home and if the property price is on the lower end.
So all in all, it’s pretty much the same cost (and that’s not adding the mortgage broker fee you might pay if you didn’t use Habito) – everything depends on the property of course (house, flat, old, new, odd shape, style etc), but it could actually work out cheaper to use Habito, plus you get the benefits of them doing it for you.
Nuts About Money tip: if cost is a big concern for you, you can always get a few different quotes.
As an added bonus, you also don’t pay it all in one go. You pay a deposit first, and then the rest of the balance when your house purchase completes. And if your house purchase falls through, you can use the deposit on the fees for the next house you like.
The customer support is excellent.
It’s mostly based on live-chat through their website, and the response time is fast! They’ll answer pretty much every question you have, even about mortgages in general and things like interest rates, not just about Habito and how everything works – there’s a wide range of experts all under one roof.
And if you’d rather find help yourself, there’s a big help centre on their website with loads of information to answer your questions. You can also email them too if you’re happy with a slower response.
As we’ve mentioned, you can also go old school and speak to someone over the phone if you like too, but you’ll need to be assigned a mortgage advisor first (you get one once you sign up to the free service on their website) – and then you can speak to them whenever you want.
Yep! It’s authorised and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which means they have been approved and are trusted to find you the right mortgage.
This also means you are fully protected by the FCA too, and can claim compensation if Habito did provide you with incorrect information or not the right mortgage for you. Typically up to £85,000.
Habito are also authorised to provide legal advice and carry out all the legal work for you with home-buying. You’re in safe hands!
Customers love Habito. It’s actually one of the best scores we’ve seen on Trustpilot, the popular reviews website – with a score of 4.8 out of 5 from over 8,500 reviews. Having been customers, we can see why and completely agree.
It’s a very impressive score, especially for a company in financial services where customer service is often somewhat lacking, you’re probably familiar!
Customers are super happy with the service in general and the level of customer service they receive from the mortgage advisors and customer service team.
A B-Corp is a company that’s putting people and the planet on the same level as profit – so the complete opposite of all those bad energy companies burning the world down!
Habito is helping to build a sustainable world for the environment and the people in it.
Here's a quick recap of the pros and cons of Habito.
We love Habito – as if you couldn’t tell!
We think it’s a really clever idea, just what the industry needed. Why not have everything all under one roof when buying a home? Your mortgage, legal work and surveys, all managed for you – it just makes perfect sense.
If you’ve ever bought a house you’ll know how stressful it is – and for a cost similar to what you would pay doing it yourself, why not leave it to the professionals? It will be a lot less stressful for you, it's a no-brainer really!
And if you're only interested in getting a mortgage their service is completely free! You're guaranteed the best deal and the customer service is excellent. Plus it’s all online and based around your busy schedule – no meetings needed!
Overall, we can’t fault it, Habito is excellent. It’s a big 5 stars from us.
Go and get your dream home without the stress! Get started on the Habito website¹.
With Habito you can be sure you're getting the right mortgage deal, and all for free. Plus if you're buying a home, they can handle everything for you too.
With Habito you can be sure you're getting the right mortgage deal, and all for free. Plus if you're buying a home, they can handle everything for you too.
With Habito you can be sure you're getting the right mortgage deal, and all for free. Plus if you're buying a home, they can handle everything for you too.
This article was written by the team at Nuts About Money, and fact-checked by 2 independent reviewers. You’re in safe hands.
With Habito you can be sure you're getting the right mortgage deal, and all for free. Plus if you're buying a home, they can handle everything for you too.
