Which is the most reliable Halifax mortgage affordability calculator?

Anawii

Hello everyone, I have used this forum in the past but seem to have somehow locked myself out of that account and have re-registered.
My husband and I are planning to buy a new home soon, looking at the halifax website and the halifax intermediaries site, the affordability calculators give different amounts based on the same information being put in. Is anyone able to tell me which is more likely to be accurate and why they are different?  The intermediary site shows the larger amount. 
Thank you in advance of any help 🙂 

MaryNB

Halifax changed their calculator recently. The previous one asked for the house price and your deposit (and hence knew the LTV). The new one doesn't. I panicked because their old one (from like a month ago) said I could get about £170k. Just as I went to apply for a mortgage the week before last, their new calculator appeared and said I could borrow about £160k. However, with the LTV I need, I'm in the 4.75x salary range, not 4.49x. When I applied for my mortgage they said I could get £170k.

If the intermediaries site accounts for LTV use that one. Have you done an AIP with them yet?

Under Income > Affordability and Sustainability you can see how LTV affects the loan amount. The new calculator doesn't account for it.
https://www.halifax-intermediaries.co.uk/criteria/mortgage/default.aspx

Anawii

Thank you, that helps I cant believe I hadn't noticed the halifax site calculator doesn't include house orice/deposit/LTV, I think I missed it because I had looked previously and it did! To be honest even allowing for that the figures are not the same though, i cant make them match no matter how much LTV jiggling I do. We would be in the 4.75x multiple bracket too (20% deposit) unless we buy a cheaper house and then 5x I think looking at the criteria. 
We did an agreement in principle, approved for 280k mortgage with a 70k deposit which was the amount I entered, but I wish the max amount was clearer. Then after looking at houses a bit more we are trying to consider if a more expensive house with bigger mortgage (upto 85k) is a realistic option for us. I thought maybe I shouldn't do another AIP but maybe I should just go that again? 
Thanks for your reply. 

amnblog

The Halifax Direct affordability calculator is waste of time.
With the loan to value calculation included the system has no means of capping the maximum borrowing which can vary from 4.5 to 5 times income.
Bear in mind also that the higher figures offered by calculators will often be subject to a strong lender's credit score.
If you want to accurately assess how much you can borrow from any Lender - ask a Broker.

Anawii

Thanks,
Well I tried the AIP again for the higher priced house, only changes are that our credit card balances have reduced by £1000 since last time, and I was inputting a higher deposit, the result now came back saying they would lend us £261k instead of the previous £280k so that didn't go well, I'm a bit bemused by it to be honest. We were planning to stick with Halifax as we have a fixed rate with them until 2023, but maybe we need to look at other options and accept the ERC. All other online calculators (only calculators I have only done a Halifax AIP) suggest we could borrow £300-330k (combined income £71k ish, 3 children but only £232 for childcare per month, £6k credit card balance due to be repaid by end of the year). As far as we can tell our credit record is very good, no missed payments ever, no defaults etc, always overpaid credit cards significantly and mortgage by small amount too. I know scores don't mean too much but as a reference ours are both 999 with Experian. I thought we had a pretty good shot at a higher loan, at a bit of a loss as to why the amount has gone down?   

amnblog said:

The Halifax Direct affordability calculator is waste of time.
With the loan to value calculation included the system has no means of capping the maximum borrowing which can vary from 4.5 to 5 times income.
Bear in mind also that the higher figures offered by calculators will often be subject to a strong lender's credit score.
If you want to accurately assess how much you can borrow from any Lender - ask a Broker.

Thanks, it has certainly wasted a lot of my time fretting about it all today!     The income/LTV/house price I was looking at at Halifax would give us 4.75x according to their criteria, could have been down graded I guess, but we really do have good credit history/score so I would've thought we would be ok to get close to the higher end, no idea why it has reduced from £280k to £260k. I suspect a broker is a good idea, I will keep you in mind if we go that route, I have seen you post a lot on here over the years.