New mortgage, 3rd time lucky!

Technoholic

Hello all

Ive been in a position to get my first mortgage twice before but various things have prevented me from going ahead and buying something. Ive also asked these questions before but as my situation is different, I thought i'd try and get a new view on things.

So after losing my job a few years ago, I was out of work for a long time, firstly living on savings, then JSA when i had to.

Finally I have a job and been back in work now for about 5 months, and we are in the position to buy and in fact we have to move out of our property in the next few months so its quite urgent that we get moving.

Previously, i got myself into a bad situation credit wise, i ended up with a number of defaults, 5 i think. The most recent one was registered in 2008. My debts have all been paid off about 3 years ago and 2 of those defaults have now dropped off, so i currently have 3 left.

I earn £30k, my partner earns about £33k. We have £85-90k available for a deposit, and we are looking at a maximum purchase price of £330k to keep under the 75% limit to get better rates. We are going to have a face to face chat with our mortgage adviser tomorrow, but from early conversations with him, he thinks we should be able to get a 2, 3 or 5 year fixed at a fairly decent rate.

My question is how likely do you think this is given the above scenario? My girlfriend has been in a steady position for a good few years now and her credit history is fine.

Thanks

Meeper

I would say that it is reasonable, however I would question the sensibleness of your decisions. You are looking for a mortgage of around 4x joint salaries when you have only been in employment for 5 months and have previous credit issues.

I would suggest, with respect, that a smaller property and less lofty ambitions might be prudent as a first step for a few years until your situation is significantly more stable.

Technoholic

well, unless we buy a flat, we wont get much smaller, that price was a maximum we would pay, not necessarily the price we WILL pay, but around this area, finding a house in a good location around here (which is more important than size for us) that is cheap is impossible.

Also, I've not had a single penny of debt for 3 years. I got into a difficult situation when i was much younger and have long since moved on from that. Whilst i was made redundant at a bad time, when jobs were scarce, i have no concerns about my job stability in the future, at least not more than anyone else currently working, plus my other half has a "no redundancy" policy in place for at least a few years longer.

However you say you think its reasonable to expect to get that sort of mortgage, that's good to know. We may even have the possibility of more for a deposit than above which would help us even more. My MA has suggested a few mortgages with which our monthly payments would leave us between £900-£1000 spare a month, after bills and food etc, which i personally think is reasonable, others may disagree, but that still gives us a significant portion for savings and emergencies and general living

Meeper

Another point to consider is that if you have had no credit since your bad stuff, you have not rebuit your creditworthiness, and this, combined with your lack of stability, may result in a generally low score overall which may be restrictive with some lenders.

This is, unfortunately, one of those things it's impossible to find out without going through the lenders' credit checking process and obtaining an agreement in principle in the first instance.

Good luck.