Does having a savings account with the lender help mortgage application?

Irie87

Hi all,

I am 22 and currently saving with the aim of getting a house with my girlfriend in the future. Currently I have an ISA with Nationwide, but the intrest rate is a paltry 0.5%. I am considering moving it to another bank where I can get better interest rates, however I am told that in years gone by, lenders looked favourably on people who had savings with them when it came to mortgage applications. My question is whether having a savings account with a bank/building society will be taken into account when applying for a mortgage or is it irrelevant where my saving happen to be?

Cheers!

opinions4u

Makes very little difference.

Get the best deal you can for your savings and the best deal you can for your mortgage.

Don't expect a lender to do you a favour simply because you saved with them.

DVardysShadow

opinions4u wrote: »

Makes very little difference.

Get the best deal you can for your savings and the best deal you can for your mortgage.

Don't expect a lender to do you a favour simply because you saved with them.

That is of course the modern way. As the current situation continues, I think the old ways may return and certainly, all other things being equal, a good record of saving with some of the lenders will actually put some customers ahead.

lingwood

I am only 32, but I remeber when I was very young, my parents having to go personaly to the Branch manager for a loan/over draft or similar for not much of a loan.

Gone are the days when the branch manager had real power, but maybe as the above post says it might help things if it was brought back

But until then, shop around using site like this for the best savings accounts and mortgages, and then recheck every 6 moths or so that they are still the best (more so with savings, less applicable to mortgages every 6 months)

PJackson_2

Actually, I was looking at Halifax mortgages the other day and they did have some mortgage packages that were only open to people who already had current accounts with them. I do agree that this will become the norm more and more - that way a lender can fully satisfy themselves of your credit/savings history and not have to rely on anything/one else i.e. your application solely.

skiTTish

I disagree ,we went to our bank for a mortgage and they were falling over themselves to give us a mortgage ,they couldnt do enough for us !

Joe_Bloggs

You can keep your options open if they do favour existing savers or not. If you open savings accounts with many lenders and keep the vast majority of your savings in the most competitive accounts then you maximise the growth in your savings deposit.

If you have an existing cash ISA from a previous tax year you do not have to transfer all of it to a new ISA provider.You can pick and choose how much goes where.
The best ISA rates tend to be fixed for one two or more years. There is little competition for flexible instant access savings these days.

J_B.

Irie87

Thanks for all the replies, seems like a mixed bag of experiences! Given that my currenyt amount of savings is a loooong way off what I need for a deposit (only 2.5k at the moment), I think I may move my ISA and get it working more for me. If it becomes apparent that it will be helpful I can start to spread the rest of my savings around some of the likely lenders and see how that pans out.

barnaby-bear

Irie87 wrote: »

Hi all,

I am 22 and currently saving with the aim of getting a house with my girlfriend in the future. Currently I have an ISA with Nationwide, but the intrest rate is a paltry 0.5%. I am considering moving it to another bank where I can get better interest rates, however I am told that in years gone by, lenders looked favourably on people who had savings with them when it came to mortgage applications. My question is whether having a savings account with a bank/building society will be taken into account when applying for a mortgage or is it irrelevant where my saving happen to be?

Cheers!

I found they were far more interested in the current accounts..... they see your salary go in and how much you spend and regular commitments and how much you waste/transfer to savings etc so can make a really good evaluation on affordability.... so if you are quite sensible with money it might useful to have long-standing current accounts.