Buying a house - first steps

I can a recommend you a good broker if you want. He’s a good guy and most stuff is done over email. I can PM his details if you want them.

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Cheers man, that’d be great

Can I just give a quiet suggestion to getting your mortgage from your bank. Brokers are just dicks, selling products from others dicks. Your bank needs to stay vaguely on side with you, and also don’t need to do anywhere near the level of checks, as they already know you.

Got my last two straight from my bank, and cant imagine going to a broker again.

Yeah this time round I just went to Nationwide (not my bank). Fuck brokers.

I know you didn’t mean to reply to me here jimbo but my bank were an absolute shower of incompetency (see posts at the top of the thread) but Ant it will definitely be worth enquiring with L&C as well as going to your bank.

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What’s L&C?

London & Country brokers that niki mentions above.

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Jesus Christ

Done.

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Yes, soz, probably a bit too simplistic a take, that.

However, people are pushed towards brokers far too quickly, when your own bank might be able to do all the work and all the running for you.

I do like the little chat brokers give though about how they are independent, and not given preferential terms, then make you sign something confirming they have said it, then go “now here is a deal you wont see anywhere else…”

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The reason in Ants case I think a broker is worthwhile is the bit about his gf changing jobs - some banks/building societies will be fine with it, others won’t want to know. A decent broker should know enough to about the market to be able to recommend an appropriate one.

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I think you’d have to be silly to not ask your bank what they can do for you so I’m hoping Anty Poos will ask them anyway. Sadly ours (who are First Direct, GBOL) couldn’t match what we got through a broker.

Have you used L&C? In my experience they couldn’t be less pushy.

When Mrs H and I bought our first flat, she was a foreign (still is), without a job (no more - coming over here doing our admin) but had a wedge of cash from an inheritance.

we needed a shit hot broker then to pick through that, because any of the box tickers really struggled:

“okay, so she wont be on the mortgage, but she is giving you the money? And she is British, right?”

God it was awful.

(my point being what plstcnk said - try both)

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Yup, for what it’s worth, I’ve gone direct 3 times and through a broker twice. Neither is inherently better/worse (depending on circumstances), but in my anecdotal experience, L&C’s “full market” search was less than comprehensive - that may have been the individual broker rather than the company at fault though.

I think my particular bonk on for the bank direct was that I had a meeting with a man, who I could then phone, who could access all my accounts, and who also seemed to be able to take a view on things because he had been given the autonomy to make commercial decisions, rather than have to just tick boxes.

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I was always put of by L&C, as when we bought through Bairstow Eves, originally they insisted we had to use L&C, which made me think that they had some vested interest. But that was 7 years ago.

I said I wasn’t willing to use L&C and found a deal myself and they backed down. Since then I’ve used a broker recommended by someone I work with, who seems pretty good and non-pushy.

Retract that fucking disgraceful superfluous ‘of’ and you’ll have my very best wishes/congratulations, A-dog.

(Fuck banks. Get a building society mortgage, through a broker or otherwise.)

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Yes, in my experience. But maybe not for you if you passed some sort of affordability test.

I remember needing to clear credit cards and a bank loan. Say you earned £50k and the bank will give you 4.5 times your earnings, that’d be £225k.

The mortgage provider may revise how much they will lend you based on any liabilities. Let’s say you owe £2k combined on credit cards and overdrafts. The bank will still lend you 4.5 times, yet will deduct it from your earnings—i.e. £50k-£2k becomes £48k. The amount you may now borrow is £48k*4.5=£216k.

In my experience and opinion, it can make a substantial different to the type, location and whatever else property you are able to afford.

Will it take much to clear it?

It’s probably around the £2k mark all-in tbh so may need some working around. We’ll see. Cheers for that though, very useful indeed.

Sorry, forgot to say, it’s important to clear it but also for it to disappear from your credit score.

We needed to clear some liabilities and for it to disappear from our credit score. Each lender is no rush to clear your record and it can take months for it to disappear. I was in despair as we waited of it to disappear.

Bear this in mind; you might need to start thinking about it sooner rather than later