'How much can I borrow' and monthly commitments

elefantastic

Hi,

I one day plan on becoming a first time buyer, and I am just looking online at the 'how much can I borrow' calculators banks have on their websites to get a general idea of how much they are willing to lend so I can slap the amount I have saved on top and get a rough idea of the properties that would be within my price range.

On said calculators they ask for your salary, loan/card repayments and also other monthly commitments and for this last field they cite examples such as insurance, council tax, bills.

For the most part this is fairly obvious to me and easy to calculate - despite not being a home owner I have car insurance, I have a mobile phone bill and things like internet isn't going to vary, however what will vary are the other bills.

Council tax I can easily look up on council websites, but water, electricity, gas - I have no idea at all how much this is typically going to be for a single person. How can I go about estimating this for inputting into these calculators?

ACG

Your a homeowner - it should not be too difficult to estimate what your bill will be. Even if you are looking at bigger or smaller properties its not going to fluctuate too much unless your going from a studio to a 3 bedroom semi.

However, most lenders use national figures supplied by the ONS (how many people in the property, type of property etc). Those questions are more for if you have something a million miles out from the "norm".

elefantastic

My mistake I made a typo.

I am not a home owner, as I opened with, I plan on one day becoming a first time buyer. I later on meant to say despite not being a home owner.

Additionally, I've kind of 'guessed' at figures for the utilities, though I've noticed that some lenders ask the question about your outgoings and some do not.

Those that do present a 'how much can I borrow figure' that is much less than those that only ask about outstanding credit (of which I have zero).

Are those that don't ask that question only going to later on ask the question and then drastically reduce down their figure?

ACG

I imagine they will be using ONS figures.

Go on some of the price comparison sites. They will ask how many people, size of house and give you an idea of figures.

Do you have any friends in similar situations to what you will be in? Ask them?

elefantastic

Thanks for the tip of comparison sites, Money Supermarket allows you to progress based on property and occupancy some of the others only allow you to input past usage.

I do know some in similar situations but either different type of property or different occupancy so just took a rough stab at a figure based on them.

I do find it curious though that those who don't ask the question present a figure that is quite a lot more than those who don't.

I'm talking in the order of 30% more and I am a slender spender so I wouldn't expect to find myself above average based on ONS figures to drag the figure down so much for lenders who do ask the question.

ACG

I remember doing an affordability calculator with 2 lenders for a client.
1 would lend £24,600 another would lend over £100k more same details.

No point trying to understand it, you just find what works best for your circumstances. So long as you have atleast 1 lender with normal rates your fine.