Is a Mortgage Possible in our Situation?

Short-n-Sweet

We are currently saving to buy a first home - hopefully!

I have to say this is all brand new to me and I struggle to get my head around all of it but we are looking at Shared Ownership Properties at the moment and there is a New Development site locally which we would be very interested in. The thing is we are feeling deflated that a Mortgage maybe impossible to get...

My Partner Currently works Part Time as for the last 2 years we have been running a Business from home and although we are very busy the turn over is not impressive to a lender. So we are thinking long and hard - Do we Give up the Businesses and Both Find Work.

Should my partner try to go full time and I run the majority of the Business alone. Do we try to down scale the Business and do both.

We created the Business together and have enjoyed building it up and have become rather busy and enjoy the possibilities having a Business could bring in the future however we would really like a first home. In the new year we plan to go and seek advice as much as possible but thought I would see if anybody could help us.

We have around £10,000 saved so far - Which we plan to boost as much as possible in the next few months. I have tried online calculators and lots have said they would lend £0 my Partner did have a meeting with Santander (not a proper mortgage type meeting but they said they would lend to him) not sure how with such a small income.

We applied for a property earlier this year and the reason we were turned down was their finance advisor did not think it was affordable to us but they would not discuss why or what options we had in the future so felt abit deflated and knocked back.

What sort of income is the minimum for a lender to offer - even around £80,000 Thanks in advance and huge apologies for my lack of knowledge I know I must sound crazy! or a dreamer. :rotfl:

ACG

I dont really do shared ownership so im going to give you a generic answer for a normal mortgage.

Typically you can borrow around 4-5 times your annual income. Where you are self employed lenders will need between 1 and 3 years accounts and/or self assessments (SA302). The figure the lender uses for self employed varies, sometimes its the latest, sometimes its an average.

However a few things to consider:
Debts (credit cards, HP etc)
Commitments (child care etc),
Rent on the share you do not own

Will all have some impact on how much you can borrow.

Forget meeting with a bank, I would suggest finding a broker who deals in shared ownership mortgages as they are not as straight forward as a normal mortgage.

Short-n-Sweet

Thank you for such a quick reply! Its appreciated. I had never thought of it being a different kind of mortgage (clueless!) so will definitely look into finding one that deals in shared ownership mortgages.

We started looking for S.O after some appeared locally and the fact the initial deposit was so small. I am still very much trying to do home work on everything but they seem to be the best option for us currently and like the option to eventually buy more of the share as and when possible. Thanks again for the response.

ACG

Make sure you understand the process of buying more.

You cant just buy 1% here and 1% there.