Couple of questions on how i appear to lenders.

andyfromotley

Hi,

i may be looking to remortgage when i reach the end of my fix later this year. So just a couple of questions about how lenders view these points (i know its very difficult to generalise about lenders but am interested to see if there is a consensus view)

1) I have the following credit card limits available to me.
1. Virgin 12995/15000 (hope to pay down to around 8k before app)
2. Barclay card 0/9800
3. FD 0/4800

Thats a whopping 29k of available credit!! Would it be better to close one or two of these cards? Or does it counter intuitively show that i am managing my finances as i am not using all of this credit!I don't need them and only hold them as an emergency or convenience.

2. I am 48 years old. I am retired and have an index linked pension of 22K. I am starting uni in sept. Which is likely to be viewed more positively by lenders, Retired or Student?

I'd appreciate your views, i'm only aiming at high street mortgage lenders.

meer53

I'm not a mortgage advisor but it wouldn't look good to me if i was ! (I do have experience in lending though)

In view of the stricter criteria these days for lending on mortgages, i'd do everything you can to bring down your existing cc balance and close those other 2 cards. On an income of 22k, whether you're a student or retired, that amount of existing debt and available credit won't help i would imagine.

You might be managing your finances just fine, but you could spend all of your credit tomorrow. What would you think if you were a mortgage lender ?