What are our chances?

HarriettPotter

Me and the old man are very keen to move house. The house we live in belongs to him only - I'm not on the mortgage (he bought it before we met) so we want to move and buy together.

We keep talking and deliberating about what to do and what to save and so on and so on, so I thought I would ask here if anyone would suggest what they think our chances are? I've not gone as far as finding a mortgage adviser yet but I probably would do depending on what you think of our situ?

So.. his salary £31500 + £3kish bonuses (do they take these into account?). My salary £25,100 due to rise to about £27,500 in September when I increase my hours.

The OH's house has about £119,000 left to go on the mortgage and houses around us go for anything between £140k and £145k really. Ours is in better nick than a lot of them but we have a hunch we'd have to let it go for nearer the £140k mark as things are so slow at the mo.

We have been on a strict debt management plan for a while now which ends in August this year (apart from car loan). Everything has been paid on time and usually overpaid each month in order to clear it. It has mainly been credit cards but we've had overdrafts too (one left to pay off). I reckon there have probably been a couple of missed payments in the last few years. I know of one for a fact, but I'd have to trawl through paperwork to see if there were others - if there were they were yonks ago.

The car loan costs us £176 and I think there are 3 years to go but I'd have to check. Almost all of the debt over the last 14 months has been OH's. I paid all mine off in April 2011, but I did take on a £2k debt for him as I got a great fee free BT, so that's in my name but as I say it will all be gone in August. (I'm not sure if it makes a difference if debt is in his or my name?).

We don't have any other savings, so all we have in the pot is any equity in the house. The place we want to move to is more expensive than this area so I guess I'd like to know how much we might be able to borrow? And, on the basis of our financial situ, whether we'd actually get a lender to give it to us or not!

I guess we need to weigh up whether we can go for it in August, or whether we have to sit tight to pay more off mortgage/save/pay off car/be without debt for a few months... I dunno! I'd be very grateful for anyone's thoughts

Dave_Ham

Forget everything else at the moment, your deposit will be your biggest challenge.

You will require at the very least 10% of the new purchase price and remember associated costs specifically 1% stamp duty..

The mortgage is affordable and I imagine you mean you have been repaying your debt strictly, rather than a strict, formal "debt management plan" which is something different entirely.

Remember when working out equity = savings that you are likely to have to pay an Estate Agent, although you can easily market yourself or pay a fixed fee to sell..

All the best

HarriettPotter

Thank you that is helpful.