Frustrated by unprepared FTB

Bargain_Rzl

jpwhittle - I'm not sure whether Alexander Hall are notorious in general for this sort of thing, or whether the good feedback outweighs the bad. I've just used them myself (mortgage offer came through from Nationwide yesterday) and my broker has been nothing but helpful. I went with them after three separate recommendations - one from a friend who bought a house 5 years ago (I was thinking about buying a flat 4 years ago and I did speak to Alexander Hall then on that recommendation), one from some friends who have just bought a house in the last few months, and one from somebody on this site. I'm sure people have had bad experiences with them (and yes, I did see the Whistleblower documentary too) but have had so much good feedback from others that I was confident to use them (and will be recommending them to others in future).

seven-day-weekend

AndrewSmith wrote:

The only complaint I've ever had was about 8 years ago from a first time buyer. They came into my office and said they wanted a mortgage 100% of £120,000

I started to go through the presentation, then we came to income.

Applicant 1 £6,500 pa part time
Applicant 2 £6,000 pa dole money

I was amazed. No guarator, deposit, etc. I basically had a bit of a word with them about how it worked and the fact that they had to actually work to get a mortgage etc.

They complained to my boss saying that I had been too blunt with them. Needless to say the complain was never upheld.

What do they expect? Do people want me to be honest or diplomatic? Tell it as it is, that's my motto and apart from this one time it has bever done me wrong.

Andy

Eerr....how did they think they were going to afford the repayments? Or were they just assuming the state would pay it?

Spirited_2

I must admit that we were guilty of going around a couple of the cheapest properties just to see what was available (we had just started looking) we fell in love with one of them and then went to see a morgage advisor who dashed our hopes.

It was perhaps naive to think that the morgage situation would have changed a little to reflect the high prices (i.e. by allowing a greater percentage times the income). We certainly could afford the repayments on the morgage (we paid a similar amount in rent) and assumed that we could get the money. Thankfully we did have the sense to not put in an offer till we had been to the bank.

I guess what I am trying to say is that yes, FTB can be irksome, but you have to remember that they haven't been through the process before and perhaps have never been told the way things work. I would just ask the buyers questions related to their position (ask them if they are looking to move soon, have they been through the AIP process yet, etc) to determine their situation - most FTB aren't trying to be delibrately misleading, they just haven't watched enough of Phil and Kirsty yet.