When to apply for a personal loan? (Post first Home purchase)

Befuzzled

God my previous threads here make for despressing reading, much better now at least! I'll unload all the relevant blurb below, cheers in advance for any advice! (And sorry for verbosity!)

We've just purchased our flat (12th Dec 2014) and I'm looking to take out a £9k-£10k Personal Loan or therabouts. The main issue is I'm not sure how long to wait until my credit file "settles". (Address change, credit checks, my accounts having money in and out, new direct debits, etc. etc.).

The file itself should be good, never missed a payment, multiple DDs over 12 months (ended when we changed flat, new DDs started from a joint account), one loan previously of £800 paid off about 14 months ago (no missed payments, paid off early in month 10). I've never had a credit card though (I know I should get one with a tiny balance and pay it off regularly to keep the credit score high, just hate the idea of them)

Info:

• I earn £23.5k a year
• Have been in my job 2 years
• Saved £300 per month every month the last year bar December. (Month we completed, plus Christmas and the first big mortgage payment due in January)
• After tax/SL income is £1490
• Bills/DDs and mortgage at £440 (my half)
• Still saving £300 a month since purchase (Jan & Feb)
• Outgoings esentially £1200 pm
• Electoral register changed (I know this takes up to 3 months) All other addresses (bank, DDs etc.) as well.

I don't touch the savings, previously it all went on the deposit, and there's a lot of room to spare beside this as we spent a lot on travel from the "unsaved" money: Managed Australia, Portugal, Ireland, London and Tuscany last year. That's knocked on it's head as I try and overpay the mortgage with that money instead, so savings should stay at £300 until I get a 2K buffer, then that all goes on the mortgage too. (Minus any Loan repayments).

The lender won't care about that though, they will just see the £300, so for all itents and purposes, outgoings of £1200.


So, questions:

• I take it actually getting a loan won't be an issue? (Repayments of ~£200 over five years, loads of room up to the £300 I save already and can show consistenly, even after buying our flat. I'd consider 4 or 3 years to reduce interest but like breathing room)

• When should I apply? I'd like to ASAP, but am thinking 6 months after completion is more sensible?

• As an FYI. I plan to use the money for: Double glazing (£1000), Furtniture (£1000), courses for my professional exams (£3400) - [when passed my pay moves to £37k, but I have to self-fund the courses] and an engagement ring (£2000) - [I know diamonds are a pointless fake market, but she's traditional!]. I don't see issues with any of this.

• The other £~2-3k (I'll have £1000~£1800 saved when applying also) I was planning to give to the other half's parents who helped us with a bit of the deposit (£4k). We disclosed this to the lender when getting the mortgage.
  
  This part I'm unsure of, the original plan was to have the extra as excess if other costs ran over (carpets, nicer furtniture, higher than expected glazing cost, potenital new boiler), but it would be good to pay them sooner rather than later. Will this stated use hurt my chances? (I take it it's fraud to not declare this, and just state the above as a use? Can we plan one thing and change later as we did here?)

• We're with HSBC who have 3.9%. Am I more likely to get the representative rate from them as they have my full history? It's reasonably close to the 3.6% best rate. I don't want to pick the wrong lender then get a mark on my credit file and have to wait another X months.

Cheers in advance all! (I need to work on being concise, I know )

SHill

Just do the maths. Make sure you've got a good buffer if things go wrong. Nice to have supportive parents but do they want that money back?!
Budget budget budget. Look through this site as well as uswitch etc.

RDG

My first port of call would be HSBC if they are your main bank and ask them what they could offer you, as they have your history they are more likely to lend to you. They can can a quotation rather than a full application which wont leave a footprint that other firms can view on your file.

One of the key things for applying generally is being on the electoral roll so I would wait if applying elsewhere until this is showing on your files.

Gaz83

I completed on my house in December 2013 and was approved from a personal loan of £6k at the end of January 2014.

I went to my own bank for the loan. Their headline rate was advertised at 4.9% IIRC, but they explained that due to the recent mortgage I'd be unlikely to get that. I was given my loan at 6.4% which I was quite happy with.