Advice for FTB please

mamamoi

Hi All,

Bit of background: have found a house through a family friend (private sale). She wants £119,000.... neighbours have offered asking price, but she would rather we have it and has said she will go to 118,000 for us.

We have a deposit of £30,000 (25%) giving us a mortgage of £88,000, there is no chain involved on either side. Have never had any loans or bad credit. Use credit cards occasionally and always pay them off. DH is Canadian but has his UK citizenship and we have been living here for last 8 years.... how far back do they go on the credit history?

DH went to the halifax yesterday and I spoke to a broker.... best option was through the broker (Abbey/Santander) at 2 yr fixed at 4.29% with no arrangement fee and a free valuation plus £250 cashback. Bearing in mind have to pay her a fee of £149.

We have since looked at First Direct and found a 2 year tracker at 2.99% and no arrangement fees. We like the idea of the tracker as it is flexible for overpaying etc.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experiences on First Direct? Any advice is appreciated.

ACG

Read through these forums, first direct and HSBC despite having the best deals are very hard to get.

mamamoi

ACG wrote: »

Read through these forums, first direct and HSBC despite having the best deals are very hard to get.

do you mean the mortgages are hard to get or that the companies are hard to get hold of?

MB1919

mamamoi wrote: »

do you mean the mortgages are hard to get or that the companies are hard to get hold of?

The former. First Direct (HSBC) offer competitive mortgages but are very picky about who they lend to.

mamamoi

MB1919 wrote: »

The former. First Direct (HSBC) offer competitive mortgages but are very picky about who they lend to.

Thanks, So if we want to move quite quicly on this how risky is it to apply with FD? They gave an estimated turnaround time for an agreement in principle of 2 weeks which sounds quite long to me. Or is this normal? The bank said approx 48 hours but their rates were no where near as good.

Leeaquila

Hi, First Direct offer such good deals as they only offer them to the perfect applicants, typically only 10% of applications get accepted.

2 weeks is very long for a decision in principle, typically we can do it within an hour with our lenders.

Generally, you can overpay by the same amount on a fixed rate as a tracker, so that wont be a major issue, unless you expect to overpay by more than 10% of the balance each year, if thats the case then a more specialised product is needed.

There is no harm in applying with FD, however from experience, I have found that if there is something "out of the ordinary" on the application, then it will be declined. your partner being Canadian could be an example of this, although in theory it shouldnt be.

If you would like to discuss more formally, please PM me and id be delighted to help, complex cases are what I specialise in.

Thanks
Lee