First Time Home Buyers

Mortgages

A mortgage is the biggest financial pursuit that most people undertake in their life. The following are some questions that a lot of first-time home buyers ask along with our answers to them.

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How Much Can I Borrow?

It doesn’t matter whether you are just starting to look for a home or whether you have found a home that you like. You must know how much that you can borrow. We have a calculator on our website that will give you a rough estimate of how much you can borrow, the monthly payments that you will make and the deposit that you will need. These figures all depend on the mortgage product chosen so you need to be as flexible as possible in order to make the right decision.

How Can I Select a Property?

You select a property by doing the following:

First select the area of your choice
Be very specific with what you want
You can consider various factors like closeness to healthcare facilities, availability of good transportation system, closeness to schools, shopping malls etc.
You must be specific with what you want
Decide on the type of house you want. It could be a house or a flat. Be specific with requirements like number of bedrooms and other things so your estate agent can find you something suitable as fast as possible.
Reach out to as many estate agents as possible in the location you want.
Tell the estate agents to send you suitable properties that they have as regular as possible.
Record every property that you visit.
You might visit a lot of properties in just a little time. It is essential that you record all the good and bad things about them to ensure that they meet your needs.
Ensure you are very close with at least one estate agent.
You can call once a week to confirm your interest in the house so they will know how serious that you are. This way, they will ensure that you are one of the first to get a look at any new property that they have.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of people that might be looking for the same kind of house you are looking for.
If possible, you can pay the asking price right up to avoid a bidding war.

Do not do the following:

Don’t forget to consider any extra cost.
Apart from the mortgage payments you mustn’t forget to consider expenses like Council Tax, maintenance bills, utility bills, property bills and other renovation work.
Don’t be inflexible. You must be prepared to trade off one property for another one. You might need to knock off one factor for another one as you may not find exactly what you want.
Don’t keep a short-term view. Look at things on the long run.
Don’t buy a home because of your friends or your job. Your friends could move away and you might get another job.
Do not forget to consider your family when making a choice. Ensure the area has good schools for your kids. Ensure there is a lot of room for your family and make sure that the area is safe.
Do not offer the asking price immediately. A lot of sellers increase their prices by more than what they will sell normally. You can offer 90% of their asking price especially if you will need to carry out any redecoration or repair work on the property.
Do not assume that any offer is permanent. People can renege on offers if they get a better offer. An acceptance of your offer is not legally binding until the seller and you exchange contracts. Gazumping might occur. This is when a seller accepts an offer and then take another bid that is higher.

MAKING A CHOICE

Selection of a property

You can have various factors for selecting a property like schools, closeness to work and shopping malls and the transportation network.

Selection of a mortgage

We will manage the whole process of your loan application from beginning to the end.

Deposit

Before you can obtain your mortgage. You will need to provide a deposit. The larger the deposit, the better the mortgage deals that you can receive. You don’t need to pay this deposit till when contracts are exchanged. But you will need to prove that the deposit is available at the beginning. This is to make the lender know that you aren’t borrowing money from another place and increasing your monthly outgoings in the process. When you considering the level of deposit you must consider other costs like solicitor’s fees, valuation costs and stamp duty.

Average cost of deposit: The average cost of the deposit is about 5% or more of the purchase price. For a property of £200,000, you will need to put down £10,000 or more for a deposit of £5.

Making an Offer

With the knowledge, you have obtained on how much that can be borrowed, once you have a specific price range in mind, it becomes easier for you to select a property. After you have found a place that you like, you need to make an offer to the vendor so the vendor can accept the price that you want to pay. This acceptance of your offer is usually through an estate agent. Once your offer has been accepted, the next stage of the process can begin.

Estimated time: This is about two to four weeks from when there is an offer from the lender once all necessary information has been submitted.

Mortgage advice

After the vendor has accepted your offer, you can return to your dedicated consultant to discuss the mortgage product and repayment type in details. This process is quite intricate and a lot of information will be required so that your financial objectives and circumstances can be well assessed as well as how capable you are of supporting the loan. We’ll help you search the market meticulously and examine a large number of products in order to select the best one available for you.

How We Can Help You

We save you the stress

We have a team of highly trained professionals that will work with you every point in time to make the mortgage process very easy for you thereby saving you a lot of energy and time on one of the biggest financial decisions you will make in your lifetime.

We are an independent organization

Your options will be seriously limited if you go to an estate agent or a bank and you might get a bad deal. We have access to hundreds of products in the mortgage market and we can find the perfect product that will match your needs.

We will save you a lot of money
We will save you so much money by selecting the best mortgage and negotiating rates on your behalf.