Remortgaging from abroad

brooklynite

Hi all,
I'm a newbie and this is my first post...
My husband and I bought our first house in London two years ago, but then ended up moving to the US late last year with my job. We're not sure how long we'll be away from the UK for but we love our house and would like to keep it for the long term. We are on a 2 year fixed rate residential mortgage and we got permission from our lender to rent the house out while we're away.
The fixed rate term is now almost up, and when it expires, even with the new lower interest rate, we will need to subsidise our mortgage a bit each month as the rent and estate agent fees won't quite cover it. We can afford to do this for a while, but ideally we'd like to remortgage onto a better rate.
However, I've heard that getting a mortgage while living abroad is difficult as many lenders don't do it or only offer mortgages if you have a very low LTV. Also since we don't live in the house, I'm guessing we would need a Buy to Let mortgage, and I've heard this is difficult if it's your only property (is this true?).
Has anyone else done this, and if so, what did you end up doing? Or does anyone know what our options would be?
Our LTV would be around 70%.
Thanks very much!

amnblog

You should have some options but you will need a mortgage broker that you can deal with on the Internet or over the Telephone.

Make sure they have experience in the ex pat market as it has shrunk dramatically this year. It is therefore important to know what you are doing.

brooklynite

Thanks amnblog, that's useful!