Advice & Guidance on Mortgage please

NS23

Hi all,

I was hoping for some advice and guidance on the mortgage I'm currently seeking and while I can find reference to some of the queries I have using a search, some of the info is old and I think it helps to understand the circumstances of any scenario!

Scenario
We are wanting to move house and have found our dream home which will push the limits of what we can borrow - my LTV will be roughly 49-58% as we will have a decent deposit from equity in our sale. This basically equates to securing between 4.2/4.5x my salary. My credit score is excellent and I have no other debts/cards/loans.

Mortgages
To make this work I really need to be able to get 250k - I have been researching and discussing mortgages direct with lenders and have done 3 DIPs (all on soft search basis) and the results have been varied to say the least;

Halifax - £210k over 29yrs
YBS - £251k over 35yrs
HSBC - 285k over 30yrs

I also did L&C's version of this which came out at £275k over 30yrs (but possibly up to 285k)

Obviously HSBC would appear to be the most attractive but their high DIP (which is 4.75x my salary) seems a bit too good to be true, especially in the context of what the other lenders have suggested. Doing a search on here and elsewhere it looks like HSBC are particularly picky so I'm concerned that if I go with them (and pay their huge product fee) that I ultimately won't be able to get what I need.

Q - If they didn't agree with the DIP would they flat out fail my application or would they make an offer based on what they think I can afford?
Q - Is the product fee payable in advance of the application as a whole or only once a conditional offer (i.e. affordability checks done to satisfaction) subject to valuation has been made?
Q - Based on experiences of folk on here, have formal mortgage offers been wildly different from the DIP's you have had? (an interesting one when you think that incomings/outgoings have been discussed and considered at length)

Why not a broker?
I toyed with the idea of a broker but I have never used one before and asking around friends and family the view is 50/50. My job requires lots of micro management so I have always been happy building and managing (often challenging) relationships in scenarios like this and the thought of being once removed and getting a particularly poor case worker is what is putting me off. That said, for completeness, I plan to have a further discussion with L&C but I'm also conscious that anecdotally they don't tend to work with HSBC mortgages (perhaps with good reason!!)

I'm also keen to avoid additional expenditure if it is unneccesary and having used similar intermediaries in the past on other financial matters where they hindered rather than helped (yet happily took a sizeable fee) I'm reluctant to go down that route given our relatively straight forward circumstances (i.e. no defaults, no other credit commitments etc)

Q - What value do you think a broker could bring given my specific circumstances?

One last question!

Q - My main monthly outgoing is child care which on the affordability calculators knocks around 30k off some lenders' maximum lend. This is something we could reduce by around 2/3rds if absolutely necessary but at what point would this be sensible to discuss? Prior to the application going in with adviser at the lender? With underwriters once a reduced offer has been received?

If you have made it this far I appreciate you taking the time to read all of this and hopefully I can glean plenty of useful knowledge from the group :beer:

amnblog

If you want this managed properly, and to reduce the risk of it going wrong, use a Broker.

From your post I can see that you do not like delegating but don't imagine for a second you can build anywhere near the understanding of the market of an experienced broker.

There is a lot more to it than product rates and online calculators.