I need a sanity check!

Mauser

Hi,

I'm new here and just looking for a bit of a sanity check regarding buying a first home.

The vital statistics....

I earn £65k, my wife £40k. We have savings of around £30k

I have 5 late payments to a credit card on my credit file. Four of these will be gone from my credit file this time next year, and the other one will come off a few months later.

Apart from that, it's clean. I've got one credit card with a limit of £9k. That currently has a balance of £500 and will be cleared this month.

No other debts at all.

My wife has a clean file with no debt either.

So... am I wasting my time looking at houses £250k - £300k? Am i just dreaming? Would I be better waiting until the late payments are off my file?

I haven't yet done any research, haven't spoken to a bank or a broker. Obviously i plan to, but i just wanted to know if i'm in the right ballpark.

What's the consensus?
Thanks!

csgohan4

generally you can lend x4.5 of your income with debt being taken into account which would reduce your amount you can borrow. The above figures seem fine. A broker would be your best port of call to get the best product for you

The_Palmist

Save aggressively and build more deposit.

bigisi

csgohan4 wrote: »

generally you can lend x4.5 of your income with debt being taken into account which would reduce your amount you can borrow. The above figures seem fine. A broker would be your best port of call to get the best product for you

The OP is looking to borrow money, not lend it.

enthusiasticsaver

For your earnings that amount of borrowing looks fine. If you have a 10% or more deposit that is good although I would continue to save to give yourself money for costs and maybe if you go for a £250k house you may be able to stretch to 15% which will give you the option of cheaper mortgage rates.


Now to the issue of your credit history and late payments. This will depend very much on the lender so going to a mortgage broker may be a good idea. Sometimes lenders weight the mortgage interest rates if you have a bad credit record so it depends very much on whether they accept if you had legitimate reasons for late payments. Have you actually checked Noddle to see what is showing on there? I think if they are about to drop off your record it may not make much of a difference but the broker will tell you more.

getmore4less

How much are you saving a month?

With net income of around £6k by the time you find somewhere you should have 10% + costs in the bag for a £300k place

With a mortgage(£270k over 30y 2.5%-4%) of around £1k-£1.3k you should still be able to save a lot to bring the LTV down to under 85%/80% over 2 years, credit clear and decent rates should be available.

get a broker not all lenders are going to like the late payments.