Make an offer with no mortgage?

looknohands

Ok that's fair enough, we looked at a property last night and it had already had an offer on it so in that situation having it would've been good, if we really liked the property, however we didn't. But has led me to think wether we are going about it the wrong way.

Main reason for not having it is that it's already been 3 months looking, market seems like it's quite slow here. Does it matter if you don't use a credit searched AIP? I'm not confident in finding something I like at the moment, so another 6 months looking wouldn't surprise me. On the other hand if I do find something I don't want to miss out, it's a bit of a catch 22 but if the credit checks don't matter I'd sooner have the AIP in place, we only have small deposit 10%.

Lungboy

Just because you get the MIP from Halifax doesn't mean you have to get your mortgage from them. You can easily get the MIP somewhere else and then do the full application with Nationwide.

looknohands

Is that advisable to use Halifax and then go somewhere else? Seems like an AIP from Halifax can't really be worth the paper it's written on if they don't even do a credit check? And are you sure it definitely wont leave a credit footprint? I just can't see why an Estate agent would take Halifax's word on what must be a very basic check, when my broker has had full documentation and seen everything from me, including my credit report, seems like she'd have more credibility in judging my ability to borrow than the Halifax AIP?

marksoton

I got an AIP before searching for properties. The other advantage of this was the fact it made it a lot easier to bat away the EA when they tried flogging me their advisor and/or other services for which they'd get a nice commission.

tlc678910

We put forward an offer before our mortgage was agreed because we viewed a house that was new on the market at the same time as several other people and really wanted it.

Our offer was framed "we would like to offer £xx subject to our mortgage being agreed for that amount - we hope to confirm that this week, we are not in a chain etc" Our broker had all the info so after an appointment with them they were able to confirm we were agreed in principle.

Our logic for not waiting to make the offer was that if the vendor received a lower offer or an offer from someone in a chain they might stall and wait to hear back from us. I think it had positive side effect in that waiting a few days for us to be able to say that yes we had been able to get agreement for that amount gave the impression we didn't have loads of cash swimming around and they didn't then try to push up our offer. Although I think it was an offer that they would have been happy with.

Good luck with your search