FTB, Shared ownership, Freelance and Part Time

Lara44

Hello Everyone (long, sorry)

We are FTBs and have been saving a deposit for the last 4 years, currently we have £30,000 (sounds a lot but doesn't go too far in London).

We don't quite have enough to buy what we want on the open market (1 bed flat at £200k). So I looked at shared ownership new builds, decided they were bad value (service charges from £114pcm, plus they were so so small).

However, I have kept my eye open for resale properties, which I have found to be much better value. On the off-chance we went to see a large and wonderful 3 bedroom house last night, of which we could buy 40% at £132,000. Full market value £330,000. I know this is good value as a 2 bedroom house in the same street is under offer at £339,000. Service charge is a mere £14pcm which with the rent is £268pcm.

We really like this house and want to put in an offer, but we have not yet applied for a mortgage. We would need to get a shared ownership mortgage for £102,000, but we would have a very respectable LTV of 77%.

Now come all the quirks in our circumstances - OH is a freelance animator. He has combined freelance with paid work for many years and so he has 7 years of accounts. However most of these are not useful as they show only a pittance profit.

This year his work has really taken off and 2009 - 2010 he has earned so far £32,000, projected figure £40,000
2008 - 2009 shows a profit of £22,000
2007 - 2008 he worked part of the year, PAYE £3500 and freelanced the other part net profit £11,000

My wage is part time as I am also a part time student, earning £15,000pa on PAYE, payslips since March.

Neither of us has any debt apart from our student loans. OH I think has a good credit rating, he has had cards for a while etc. I have no defaults or anything on mine, but not much action either - I just got my first credit card recently and otherwise have just been using my current account. We have been settled in this rental house for 4 - 5 years so should be ok on the electoral roll.

Now comes the newbie bit. What should we be doing next? Finding a mortgage advisor who specialises in SO? We have been talking with a freelance mortgage specialist and have 2 mortgage quotations (keyfacts illustrations pdfs about buying a property on the open market for £210,000). But this isn't the agreement in principle we need.

The type of property we are looking at is very rare to market and I think it will be sold so quickly. How long do you think it would take to get an agreement in principle so that we can at least make an offer? And do you think we will even be able to get a mortgage at all?