Buying first house

naked

I'm looking at buying a house which has been reposessed. The asking price is £69,950 and I want to offer up to £65,000. My main reason for wanting to move is to save money on my rent, which is pretty high for a flat which I don't like.

I bank with Abbey so phoned them up asking about the deal they do for existing customers with 80-90% deposits as they were the only ones around at the time who did a 90% mortgage with no fee.
The guy on the phone asked me some questions and said they would lend to me so I asked for an agreement in principle and he said it was in the post.
2 weeks later it still hasn't turned up. Lucky the offer I put in on another house last week was turned down I suppose?

As this new house is repossessed, the estate agent warned me that the bank is probably going to want completion within 28 days and they've had someone who lost a similar purchase because Abbey took 40 days to sort everything out.

Does anybody know if there is a way to speed up the application process? For example, can I go in to the branch and arrange a 90% mortgage for "up to" £70,000 in advance then only use £65,000 of it?

Secondly, it seems that Abbey are particularly slow at sorting out mortgages at the moment. Is there anyone else I should steer clear of? NatWest/RBS are currently doing a better deal than Abbey so I'm thinking of going to them but there's only ever negative feedback about anyone on the web!

And finally, the house is owned by HSBC at the moment. Their mortgage deals aren't the best (£995 booking fee and high rates) but would the owning bank arrange a mortgage faster or allow longer time to completion if I got my mortgage from them? My other idea was if the valuation said it was only worth £55,000 I would be taking that back to seller and saying "well your valuer says it's only worth this much so why should I pay more for it?"

Any advice would be much appreciated.

yelf

I've had mixed experiences with Abbey. Also I will never touch Nationwide.

opinions4u

naked wrote: »

I'm looking at buying a house which has been reposessed. The asking price is £69,950 and I want to offer up to £65,000.

Make sure that the property is in reasonable enough condition to get a mortgage before paying for a valuer (e.g. does it have both bathroom and kitchen installed, are there any obvious repairs needed to anything?). Can you afford any possible repairs?

I bank with Abbey so phoned them up asking about the deal they do for existing customers with 80-90% deposits as they were the only ones around at the time who did a 90% mortgage with no fee.
The guy on the phone asked me some questions and said they would lend to me so I asked for an agreement in principle and he said it was in the post.
2 weeks later it still hasn't turned up. Lucky the offer I put in on another house last week was turned down I suppose?

Perhaps it would be wise to chase them. Your preference for "no fee" concerns me becasue it suggests you may be short of the cash needed to set up home. But I don't know enough about you to support this.

As this new house is repossessed, the estate agent warned me that the bank is probably going to want completion within 28 days and they've had someone who lost a similar purchase because Abbey took 40 days to sort everything out.

The seller is not going to lose a sale for the sake of 2 weeks. But they will be prepared to let another buyer take it if you are too slow.

Does anybody know if there is a way to speed up the application process? For example, can I go in to the branch and arrange a 90% mortgage for "up to" £70,000 in advance then only use £65,000 of it?

What are you prepared to pay for? A good mortgage broker should support you through the process and push the lender for action.

Secondly, it seems that Abbey are particularly slow at sorting out mortgages at the moment. Is there anyone else I should steer clear of? NatWest/RBS are currently doing a better deal than Abbey so I'm thinking of going to them but there's only ever negative feedback about anyone on the web!

Any mortgage where your deposit is less than 20% is going to be slow through the underwriting process as it is high risk to the lender.

And finally, the house is owned by HSBC at the moment. Their mortgage deals aren't the best (£995 booking fee and high rates) but would the owning bank arrange a mortgage faster or allow longer time to completion if I got my mortgage from them?

My other idea was if the valuation said it was only worth £55,000 I would be taking that back to seller and saying "well your valuer says it's only worth this much so why should I pay more for it?"

It wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference.

emilygray

c&G Direct have acted extremely quick for me.

naked

Thanks for the bits of help. Any more info on who's slow and who is prompt to sort out ~90% mortgages would be appreciated.

emilygray:
I'll put C&G on the list in case things aren't working out with Abbey. Their rates seem quite high compared to others though (Abbey are offering 5.99%).

yelf:
Nationwide's 90% mortgage requires me to move my current account to them. It's something I could do but I'll hang fire on that one, especially given you're impressions of them.

opinions4u:

Thanks for the answers.

I chased Abbey today and they gave no explanation for the missing letter and said they would resend it, but weren't particularly helpful. If it doesn't turn up this time I will probably look elsewhere (if they can't send me a letter I'd be concerned about letting them sort out a mortgage for me...)
They did say that applications take 4-6 weeks to process, but I got the impression that was the time for all mortgages not just ones for people like me with less than 20% deposit. They also said there's no way to speed up the process (e.g. by applying before an offer is accepted) apart from asking the underwirters nicely that you need it done as quickly as possible

I would prefer something with no fees just because it's simpler. The Abbey mortgage includes a basic valuation and some cashback for legal fees but the rate is higher. Natwest's offering is a lower rate but no freebies (although no booking fee).
I'm happy to pay a reasonable fee if I'm going to get better result, but it seems daft to pay a booking fee when it doesn't give a lower rate or include any extras. A broker is something I've been considering if the cost turns out reasonable - then he can help me out. It depends on the deal he can get me.

At the moment I have set aside (up to) £6500 for the deposit, £650 for legal fees and £300 for a survey plus about £1000 for other stuff. I'm still saving, and I've not written off renting somewhere cheaper for a while to save up some more.

The property I was looking at seemed in reasonable condition, although it had been empty for quite a while. Heating is installed and I'm assuming it doesn't need replacing. It has a kitchen and bathroom in and there's no obvious problems but if I go ahead I'll be getting some sort of survey of my own done just to make sure.

My main concern at the moment is the time for the application to go through. At the moment it looks like there's no way it will get done in 28 days so unless another lender is more prompt then I don't think it's worth me putting in an offer (unless I can get the seller to agree to say 6 weeks completion, but that increases the chance of being gazumped).

Squish_21

Nationwide were super quick with my mortgage.