With the credit crunch in full swing and the dark cloud of a recession looming on the horizon, banks and building societies are not exactly falling over themselves to give us a mortgage.
It fact at times it has seemed like mortgage mayhem!
Now it seems so bad that one mortgage lender is offering its mortgage customers "golden goodbyes" worth thousands as an incentive for them to take their business elsewhere!
Edeus, a specialist mortgage lender, has admitted it is offering some you its customers an 8% discount on what you owe if you cash in your mortgage early.
It is doing this because it wants to get the mortgages off its books and as a further incentive, it is waiving any penalties that locks you into into your deal, as well as waiving the usual exit fee of about £150.
About 400 of you who are Edeus customers have been offered discounts of between 2% and 8% to gauge interest. Edeus has said that if the scheme proves popular, they will extend it to thousands more of their customers.
Edeus was set up in 2006 and specialised in selling sub-prime mortgages, buy-to-let mortgages, self-certification mortgages and mainstream mortgages through brokers. It is closed to new mortgage business, and has switched to offering home loan-related services to other mortgage lenders.
As an example, a discount of 8% on a £200,000 mortgage would save you £16,000. Put another way, if you owed Edeus £200,000 on your mortgage, you would only have to pay them back £184,000.
Edeus said that they have had a good initial response with more than 20% already in the process of redeeming their mortgages.
Edeuse admitted their move was unusual, but due to the credit crunch, it was cheaper than selling the mortgages any other way.
Alan Cleary, the company's managing director said "It's the lesser of two evils”. He added that customers certainly did not seem to take offence at the suggestion that they were no longer wanted. "They don't care," he said, adding that their attitude was one of "show me the money".
In theory, the discounts could translate into cash windfalls for some of you - particularly if other non-mainstream lenders follow suit.
However, before you get mega-excited, you must remember that mortgages are more expensive and difficult to get hold of these days.
Because of this, most of you who are able to remortgage will probably have to use the money to reduce what you owe, especially with remortgaging being harder in the current climate.
So, what do you think of Edeus’ bold move? Is it a too radical or is it a necessary evil in the credit crunch?
Tell us what you think in the comments.