I’m a Habito “Mystery Shopper” (Here’s a Genuine Review)

Some of the key features of using Habito

• 100% free mortgage service. No fees, just expert advice at no cost to you.
• Whole of market access. They search the whole market – that’s more than 20,000 mortgages from 90 lenders.
• All mortgage types covered. From residential to buy-to-let, small to high value mortgage loans.
• Your own expert broker. You’ll get your own personal broker to support you through the process. They’ll be there every step of the way.
• It’s all online. No need for meetings, appointments, long phone calls or paperwork. Welcome to the new digital world of mortgages!
• Available 7 days a week. Their mortgage experts are online and ready to chat 7 days a week, 9am – 9pm every day (apart from Fridays when they finish at 5pm, and Sundays at 8pm).

What you should know: Habito is a free Online Mortgage Broker!

• Habito is NOT a comparison website like CompareTheMarket.com or MoneySuperMarket.com, both of which compare mortgages and then link you off to the lender.

  Habito is an actual mortgage broker, which means they will facilitate in finding you a suitable mortgage with a lender and assist you with all the paperwork – and everything else – until the bitter end.

• Habito is an Online Mortgage Broker – the entire process is managed efficiently by user-friendly online forms and continuous support from an assigned “mortgage expert” via email or virtual chat boxes (which ever you prefer).

  Once you’re provided with a suitable mortgage product(s) for you, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to apply for it or not. No obligations.

• Habito’s mortgage service is completely free for you to use. They won’t charge you brokerage fees because they earn their commission from the lenders they work with.

What I personally LOVED about Habito

Since I’ve used their service multiple times over the years – my experience, and the service itself, has naturally evolved. That means, I’ve had to circle back to this blog post and give it multiple face-lifts, to ensure it’s up to date. For all intents and purposes, what follows is based on all my experiences combined, but mainly my most recent one.

While Habito has plenty of neat features that tickled my pickle, I’m just going to highlight the ones that mattered most to me (some of which were already mentioned in the key features):

1) They make the paperwork super easy

I’d say this is by far the best reason to use Habito. They’ve truly refined the process of providing all the information a lender needs to qualify your mortgage application.

I’ve applied for several mortgages in the past – both through brokers and directly with lenders – and I can confidently say that Habito’s system is by far the most efficient and user-friendly I’ve ever used. It’s not even close.

If you’ve applied for a mortgage before, you’ll be familiar with the pain of gathering endless documents, and tedious form-filling.

If this is your first time, trust me, it’s a disgusting process.

Habito’s dashboard makes the whole mortgage thing way less painful. It’s intuitive, straightforward, and lets you tackle each step at your own pace, from plugging in personal details to uploading ID and bank statements. No guesswork, no chaos, just a smooth, manageable workflow.

Honestly, it almost makes the whole process bearable.

In reality, I could have taken Habito’s recommended mortgage and applied directly with the lender (Santander, in my most recent case). I wouldn’t have gotten a better deal, it would have just meant dealing with the lender and their system directly, which I can guarantee would have been far more archaic and cumbersome in comparison.

If you know, you know.

2) They find the best mortgage for you

Unlike comparison websites, you’re not bombarded with dozens of options, which is usually only good for added confusion and mental breakdowns.

You tell them what you want (just by answering a few questions), and they’ll show you the most competitive product that fits your needs.

I actually tested this myself. I went to several lender sites and comparison platforms, thinking I’d found the best deal, but what Habito came back with was even better.

Now, I’m not claiming Habito will always find the absolute best deal for everyone, but out of everything I looked at, they beat it (and this wasn’t my first rodeo).

3) Get a quick, easy & free Mortgage Agreement in Principle (AIP)

To be fair, most brokers and lenders provide a free Mortgage Agreement in Principle (AIP). But not all. So it’s still good to know that Habito don’t charge a dime for one. All it takes is answering a few questions about your income and deposit – no credit check required! I downloaded mine in just minutes.

4) Entirely Online service

This might not be for everyone.

However, I’m the type of person who likes to get everything done online with as little human interaction as possible, which is exactly why Habito’s online service works so well for me. It’s the same reason I switched from traditional high-street estate agents to online ones, and why I buy toilet paper and dental floss from Amazon.

Some might say I’m everything that’s wrong with the world today, and that I’m contributing to the decline of our high streets. Maybe so. But the fact remains: Habito is a slick online service that has truly refined the process of online mortgage brokering, least of all because they don’t require me to abandon the comfort of my own home.

Goodbye inconvenient appointments with traditional mortgage brokers. Hello form-filling (and occasional virtual chats) in my underpants.

If you like getting things done online, using Habito to see if they can find you a mortgage is an absolute no-brainer.

5) Communication and service is delightfully prompt

SHOUT TO HELEN!

She may never read this, or even realise I’m talking about her, but she deserves praise nonetheless.

Helen was my designated “mortgage expert”, guiding me through the application and ultimately finding the right mortgage for me. She was always responsive, helpful, and patient. I frequently bombarded her with questions, and somehow, she never batted an eye. I would have driven myself insane.

Even after I’d agreed to a mortgage and was ready to apply, I kept asking her to recheck the market, just in case something better had popped up. The market moves fast, and I didn’t want to miss out on any new deals. She didn’t flinch once; she just did it, no questions asked.

Funny enough, midway through an application, she actually did find a better product that had newly launched, which would save me thousands on payments. So we quickly pivoted – abandoned ship and jumped onto a new one!

When it comes to online services like this, understandably, people tend to worry about communication and support they’re going to receive. There’s a lot on the line here. I had the same concerns, but in my experience, they were completely unfounded. The customer service was outstanding. One thing that really stood out is that you’re clearly dealing with real people with real personalities, it’s not some robotic chatbot experience!

Long story short: I was never left disappointed. Both of my experiences felt smooth, prompt, and professional.

Perhaps that’s all I needed to say.

Go to Habito.com

What sucks about Habito

Two things. Minor things.

Firstly, I appreciate that a service like Habito will suck for those that want one-to-one human interaction. If that is an absolute requirement for you, Habito, or any other similar brokerage service, will not meet your needs. That’s just a fact.

If you’re anything like my dear, sweet Nan – who gets nosebleeds just trying to navigate Facebook – then an online mortgage broker will probably send you straight into a mental asylum. If you’re not comfortable using online services, you’ll either need someone more tech-savvy to help you, or you’d be better off sticking with a traditional, local, in-person mortgage broker.

As mentioned, Habito’s service is perfect for people like me: someone that prefers doing as much as possible online, with as little human interaction as possible.

My second gripe: it’s not a deal-breaker by any means, but I didn’t love being shoved into a “life insurance” sales funnel.

After I completed my mortgage application, I was notified by Habito that “One of our protection experts will give you a call. They will ask you a few questions, answer any of yours, and let you know what they recommend.”

Wait… what the FFFFF, who, and why?

In other words, they were going to try and upsell me life insurance.

I didn’t even have an option to opt out, I was just told it was going to happen. It felt intrusive, and honestly, I couldn’t be arsed to sit through a call with someone actively trying to flog me insurance. KILL.ME.NOW!

Sure enough, a few days later, someone got in touch to schedule a 30-minute call (urgh, seriously?!) to discuss my options. I politely told him I wasn’t interested, in which he questioned why. My heart sunk instantly, because I knew I didn’t really have a good answer, so I just mumbled something incoherent.

The truth is, I’ve never had life insurance and didn’t know much about it. So it was a bit of a catch-22: I was annoyed about being forced into an unsolicited sales funnel (though, to be fair, I probably agreed to it in their pesky T&Cs – I need to check!), but on the other hand, it could be a good opportunity to learn something useful.

Either way, it felt forced, which I didn’t like. If I was given the option, I would have opted out from the beginning.

(In the end, I went ahead and scheduled the call just to get educated on life insurance – ha! It was pretty informative and gave me something to ponder! But that’s clearly besides the point!)

Is Habito safe to use?

Habito are the real deal.

They are proper mortgage brokers. don’t let their exclusively online presence fool you into thinking they’re running a nefarious sweatshop in a destitute pit on the other side of the world.

Their head of operations is based in Reading, Berkshire, and they’re authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and is on the Financial Services Register.

Online Mortgage Brokers (Habito) Vs Traditional Brick and Mortar Mortgage Broker

To date, I’ve used four types of mortgage brokers (I actually think that’s all there is):

• Traditional: Independent mortgage broker
• Traditional: Estate agent’s in-house mortgage broker
• Traditional: Bank/Building society in-house mortgage adviser (e.g. Natwest)
• Online: Habito

The obvious difference between Habito and traditional brokers in terms of process, is that Habito provides an online service which relies on emails and/or live chats, form filling, and document uploading. There is no face-to-face human interaction. In my view, this makes the process faster and more convenient.

Traditional brokers are a brick and mortar business, which entails face-to-face interaction and appointments.

If you’re not comfortable with using an online service like Habito (for whatever reason), I’m of the belief that the next best option is to use an independent mortgage broker or an estate agent’s in-house broker.

Using a bank/building society will be extremely limiting, as they’ll only offer you their own products, which is why they’re a hard sell.

In terms of actual service, generally speaking traditional brokers are more limiting:

• They won’t have access to as many products/lenders as Habito (bear in mind, Habito has access to the entire market)
• Many of them will charge a brokerage fee (because they have more overheads to cover than online services).

Habito Vs Better (formerly Trussle) – which is, errr… better?

Better.co.uk (formerly Trussle) is another extremely popular and reputable online mortgage brokerage service. Habito and Better are two of the best-known online mortgage brokers that have incredibly impressive TrustPilot ratings (at the time of writing this review):

• Habito on TrustPilot
  • Rating: 4.9
  • Reviews: 9000+
• Better on TrustPilot
  • Rating: 4.9
  • Reviews: 9000+

So which is better? I literally have no bloody idea.

I’ve only used Habito, so I can’t fairly comment on Better. But in the spirit of transparency, I should mention that Habito isn’t the only great option in the online mortgage space – it’s not lonely at the top, evidently.

I did come across this informative blog post on frugalitymagazine.com, which compared the two online services, and I quote:

Habito seem to deal with a massive range of lenders, some of whom you might not stumble across with other mortgage brokers. This, in turn, might land you a better deal than with competitors.

Trussle (now Better.co.uk), in comparison, seem to focus on more well-known high street lenders – companies you’ve heard of like Virgin Money or Barclays. This could mean a smaller range of mortgage options overall, and the potential to miss out on a better deal from a more niche lender.

Equally, for me there’s something to be said for having a mortgage from the bigger names – an extra degree of trust and security.

Make of that what you will.

The wrap up!

Right, I’m done.

Unless you nodded off halfway through my review (which, honestly, would be completely understandable), Habito gets a thumbs up! I’m a fan!.

Will I use Habito again in the future? Absolutely.

Hope it’s been useful, if only marginally. I’ll take what I can get.

If you’re thinking about using an online mortgage broker, have any questions, or if you want to share your experience(s), please feel free to pick up the mic (leave a comment below)…

Landlord out xo