FTB again after 20 years without a mortgage and it's all changed!

wibblewibble

Apologies if this is one of those daft questions asked and answered a gazzillion times before - I've searched but have got lost and derailed following different threads.

Our situation is that my husband is due to leave the forces after 20 years service our entire service life has been spent in married quarters so we'll be needing to buy somewhere to live once he leaves.

We'll have his lump sum which we intend to use to pay off a small loan we currently have and clear the credit card and the remainder should provide between 10 - 15% deposit for a house plus leave some spare for removal costs, legal fees etc and hopefully a small safety net against all those unexpected bills that often arise once you buy your own home.

We are starting now to research buying a house as everything has completely changed since the last time we were home owners (over 20 yrs ago) we are both very very wary as we were one of the many people hit by the Thatcher recession and lost a lot of money on the house we owned at the time (I had actually said I would never ever again consider a mortgage but needs must ....)

Does age matter? We'll be looking to secure a mortgage initially just on hubbys sole income as it will take a while for us to relocate and for me to find a job (complicated but he'll have to move & secure work first and I'll follow later) hubby will be between 53 - 55 when we apply and we'd like the cheapest monthly repayments we can get - when we had mortgages 20 years ago terms were based over 25 years now I find that terms can be as short as 2 years! If we were to look at those kinds of deals presumably every time we find the mortgage up for renewal we'd find it harder and harder (or more and more expensive) due to hubby being that much older? In which case would we be better off looking at a term deal which whilst more expensive would at least ensure we'd have security - if so what would be the longest repayment term we'd be likely to get?

What income multipliers are they using nowadays? We've been assuming it was 3x the income - but I've seen figures quoted of up to 4.5x

Income will be roughly £25,000 salary plus £6,000 pension (pension will rise at 55 to 9k and 12k at 60 but we would rather those rises not be taken into account as thats our security against interest rate rises) and we'll have no debts. What kind of figure mortgage would that provide for?

We have seen a house we like in the area we want for £75,000 and hubby is waiting to find out if he's got a job he's applied for outside the forces, if all the ducks lined up we could be looking to buy fairly soon and seeking around £68,500 mortgage.

I think we would be looking for what used to be called a repayment mortgage interest plus something off the capital sum per month.

Any useful information would be hugely appreciated.

dimbo61

First problem is that most lenders like you to be working for at least 3 months and not on probation period!
Second problem is 10/15% deposit, can you get more ( yes clear debts,CC cards,loans)
Good news £75k is only 3X income if he is on £25K
Third problem mortgage up to 65 years old ( normal retirement age) so 10/12 years means bigger payment each month but still not bad with a £68K mortgage
I would look at 3/5 years fixes for security or offset deals GOOD LUCK