DIP through a Broker?

ChrisMC_2

Hi

I'm a wee bit confused and hopefully someone can help me.

I'm keen to get a Decision / Agreement in principle [DIP] before I start looking to make a serious offer on a house. My rational is that I think it will give me a potential advantage if there are other parties interested in the same property by giving the seller and the agent the best impression of me as a buyer. I assume (not sure here?) that I need a DIP from the lender I intend to go with but if that is the case then how do I do that if I go through a (whole of market) Mortgage Broker?

Any advice is warmly welcome

Thanks

Chris

amyloofoo

Hi Chris, we were in the same position. For the purposes of viewings and approaching vendors / estate agents I got a DIP from one of the lenders that only do a soft search (Natwest in my case, I believe) then once we'd found somewhere we wanted to offer on, I approached our broker. The advantage of using somewhere that only does a soft search is that if the broker recommended a different lender, we were able to change without the search having a further impact.

ETA: Having said that, I'm sure a broker would be able to help in the initial stages too if you'd prefer. I have to say, ours has been invaluable through the actual application stage.

amber_man

The last time we bought we got an AIP through a broker prior to looking for a house, for the reasons you suggest.

We gave the broker the figures, told her what we wanted (in our case, a three year fix with the ability to overpay) and she talked us through some options. We picked one, got the AIP and used it to go shopping.

When we made an offer, we told the estate agent we already had an AIP and had chosen our lender and legal rep, so ducked having to see their in-house people. The couple we bought from were looking for a quick sale and I do think it helped them take us seriously. We applied for the mortgage two days after the survey came back, and from offer to completion was six weeks.

ACG

I give my clients a letter confirming I have assessed them in readineess for getting a Mortgage.

I try to avoid doing DIPs if I can until an offer has been agreed as it means a credit check being carried out with a lender who is best placed on that day, it is not neccessarily the best placed lender to lend to you on the date of application.

Also some DIPs show how much you can lend, as someone on here says. it is like playing poker with your cards showing. Estate agents will push the price up if they know you can afford more.

ChrisMC_2

Amyloofoo, Amber Man and ACG

Many thanks for your responses. These have reassured me that my approach is sound in principle but I need to be careful about:

1. Making sure I don't get a number of hard searches on my credit file and 'wreck' that
2. I don't give the agent/seller a view of what I can 'afford' and then impact part of the advantage I'm trying to gain with this approach

I like the added advantage of being able to avoid the estate agents mortgage adviser too.

Thanks again

Chris