What Would You Do? (Advice/Opinions?) First Time Buyer

Strebor123

Thanks the the tips MortgageMomma.

Goldenshadow I don't think my calculations are flawed. Our rent is £600 a month. After we've paid all our bills, food etc, had some fun we put £1200 at least into savings, we could easily cut a few things out to save more if we wanted to. We've built up a fairly decent deposit in a short time because of this.

I'm not suggesting that a bank will loan us an amount that requires repayments of £1800+ a month. On a loan of 200K the repayments come out around 800-900 a month which is very easily affordable for us and the way we live. This would mean we could make overpayments of around 500-600 a month and still put a few hundred away each month for a rainy day.

Whilst rates are so cheap we want to take advantage of it really and get a nice house where we won't need to consider moving for a good number of years. If we can get the mortgage paid off in 15 years or so that'd be great. Both of our salaries are only going to go up as we are both fairly low down the ladder in our respective careers.

Thrugelmir

Strebor123 wrote: »

I am not looking for advice on what we can and can't afford.

That's the basis on which lenders make their decisions. So it's best if you take a similar approach. Not disregard the good advice you'll receive. Borrowers by nature are optimistic about their future finances. So you are treading a well worn path. Guides of 4.5 times earnings are set for as a maximum for good reason. Above this level risk increases significantly for those on lower household incomes.

Strebor123

We already have our agreement in principal. We know how much we can borrow. This is why I am more looking for opinions on rate choice/provider.

~Beanie~

Who is your DIP with if you haven't chosen a provider? Maybe the one you do eventually chose won't lend as much as that.

csgohan4

DIP doesn't mean anything until you have the mortgage offer in hand. They don't look at everything in detail for the DIP

Strebor123

When they do look in detail then I'm sure they'll notice the £1200 going into savings each month.
As for a different provider not giving us how much we need. We simply wouldn't use them.

00sacha

Im just going through the the mortgage application process as a FTB and agree with other posts that it is entirely personal to you. I would advise finding a good mortgage broker, the one I have doesn't charge me a fee and has really helped us pick the best provider for us based on our current situation/deposit/debts etc. She has made sure to pick someone we can overpay with as well so we have the option to up our payments as and when we can.
I'm in my late 20s and I am probably going to go for a fixed 5 year term purely based on the fact that we don't plan to move anytime soon. Also I'd like another baby in a couple of years time, and it would be a nightmare if the interest rates went up just as we needed to renew the mortgage and I was on maternity leave. So I would advise considering where you think you'll be in 2/5 years time. Also would you want to move again sooner? As you do have to pay a fee (in my case it's £225) if you want to move the mortgage before the fixed term is up.
With regards to repayments, I know your not interested in affordability but really really do consider your repayments and how you'd cope if say you lost your job, or in my case my husband was hospitalised with a slipped disc for 8wks whilst I was on maternity pay!! Whilst we were told we could borrow over £250k with affordable repayments. We've gone for a lower mortgage on a house thats £200k so we are very comfortable and aren't going to have problems if something unforeseen happens in the future.