By Tony Booth

All loans now seem to have 'grey charges' associated with the product - and some of these transform what may first seem a good-looking deal into an extraordinarily expensive one.

Comparison tables and best-buy lists have changed the way we explore the mortgage market. While once upon a time we would have to trek down to the local shopping centre and visit every high street lender, gathering armfuls of notes and pamphlets, just to figure out which building society would be prepared to offer a deal; now we sit in the comfort of our homes and click a few keypad buttons.

However, a task that might seem to have become relatively easy has actually now started to get difficult, because comparison sites rarely disclose the full cost of a loan on the front page, which makes an evaluation rather more complex than the webmasters would have you believe.

Whereas once upon a time, interest rates were king - nowadays, they form just one of the multiple cost elements that collectively make up a mortgage deal. Lenders have also started to become very sly and are continuously developing new ways to hike their profits, most recently by offering to incorporate some of their more unaffordable fees into the product. This 'offer' is often put across as a 'service' - and can be extremely attractive to those who might not ordinarily have enough upfront funds to access a mortgage (such as first time buyers).