Can you secure a mortgage product before you find a house?

bmwlee

Hi. Actively looking to purchase a home (1st time buyer). Is it possible to secure a mortgage product before I find a home that I want to buy even if it means paying a fee? Or can I only secure a product once I am actively processing an application on a property? Thanks

CloudCuckooLand

You can get an agreement in principle.

But will be unable to absolutely "secure", in the sense of guarantee acceptance for the mortgage, as many of the aspects in underwriting the mortgage are down to the individual property.

bmwlee

basically what I'm looking to do is secure the product/interest rate before rates rise as i've not found a house I like at the minute. Do you think it would secure the product or just the agreement they would lend me the money

steveeeee

I want to do the same thing, as it's taking longer than we hoped to sell our house and I don't want to miss the deal we've got our eye on with HSBC. We have an agreement in principle, but HSBC will not let us book the deal until we actually buy our next house.

GemBlueTopaz1984

Hi Bmwlee,

Unfortunatly I don't think you can secure a specific product until you have an offer accepted as a full mortgage offer is specific to a property, you can get an agreement in principle but that doesn't guarantee the product only that at that particular point in time they may offer you one subject to everything being as you have told them. Even mortgage offers have time limits on them, I had to complete within 3 months of the mortgage offer I think or I would have to reapply and the product I got wasn't available a week after I got accepted so I would have had to get a higher rate had the offer elapsed. I can see why you might want to secure a good deal now before it is gone but I just don't think thats a possibility.

Gem

bmwlee

thats not good news, especially with interest rates hovering on the edge