First time buyer (hopefully) but…

goldhair86

PLEASE, PLEASE can you guys let me know your thoughts or if you’ve had a similar story and what the outcome was. 

So… my partner and I want to buy our first home - a new build using Help To Buy. 

I’m an A* when it comes to my credit. All above board, no late payments etc and I earn a decent wage. My partner on the other hand… well, he has three defaults on his credit file. One from Dec 2020, one from May 2021 and one from July 2021. All accounts are now settled though and he earns a decent enough wage too. 

It’s only really been the last few months that we have decided we want to take the first steps on to the property ladder and I have a cousin who is a Mortgage Broker and I asked her to have a look and see what she could find for us, just to test the water so to speak. I wasn’t sure if we would even be considered for a mortgage as I’ve read horror stories about defaults on credit files and mortgage applications.
I heard back from her yesterday and she managed to actually find a lender who would help, only catch was the interest rate being sky high and unaffordable. She did warn me this would happen though.

The new builds we are looking at are not even built yet, still no date for completion. We know they are happening, we just don’t know when. Hopefully next year some time though. Our Broker has said that this works in our favour though as it’s more time to make more tweaks to his credit report and more time for the defaults to gather dust. Plus, it gives us more time to keep throwing money into our savings for our deposit. She has given us lots of advise and thoroughly checked his credit file to see what we need to do to improve and we are taking all these steps. Between us we don’t have much debt and are constantly paying off to reduce the amount we do have. 

My anxiety is at an all time high though. By the time we come to actually applying for real, I’m assuming we will be accepted again, but what are the chances or getting a decent mortgage with a decent interest rate? I’ve googled lots and it seems there are lots of companies out there happy to help even though the brokers cost a fortune, are they actually any good? Can they really get you a decent mortgage?

We are desperate to get out of our current flat now and we have a young daughter desperate for a garden too! I don’t want to keep renting, I want to be a real homeowner! These new developments are exactly where we want them in terms of area etc and I don’t want to loose out.

Any advice? Good news stories from anyone in a similar position?

San_Jose

It can be done. Just keep the faith as it can be very nerve racking. There are plenty of good brokers around (In this case I would not specifically rely on the one the house builders use). We had a similar issue (2 defaults of around 2 years old), settled and we were able to get a mortgage from a high street lender at a great rate (I posted about it at length last year on here somewhere). Good luck!

goldhair86

San_Jose said:

It can be done. Just keep the faith as it can be very nerve racking. There are plenty of good brokers around (In this case I would not specifically rely on the one the house builders use). We had a similar issue (2 defaults of around 2 years old), settled and we were able to get a mortgage from a high street lender at a great rate (I posted about it at length last year on here somewhere). Good luck!

Thank you! I’m so desperately trying to keep the faith but I’m so nervous about it all. Do you have a link to your thread? I’d love to read your experience. 

amnblog

3 defaults in the last 12 months? That is unfortunately not going to look any keener to lenders during 2022 and a chunk of 2023.

kingstreet

When the last default passes a year old; then two years old; then three years old more and more lenders will fall into your possible pool and the likely rates will fall. In the near future you are not getting anywhere near high street.

Tiglet2

Aldermore and Precise could be considered, but your recent defaults will not help.
TSB offered a mortgage to my daughter and boyfriend - the boyfriend had old defaults that were 5-6 years old.

london21

The good news is you will be able to get a mortgage, the not so good news is the interest rates might not be the most competitive.

A broker should be able to sort something out for you.

Your partner should try to avoid any more defaults in order to give you more options.

goldhair86

london21 said:

The good news is you will be able to get a mortgage, the not so good news is the interest rates might not be the most competitive.

A broker should be able to sort something out for you.

Your partner should try to avoid any more defaults in order to give you more options.

Yes, thank you! My mortgage broker was just putting the feelers out and the mortgage she got us was a high interest rate. I’m expecting that though. She reckons by the time we come round to actually applying for it - mid next year we may hopefully get something slightly cheaper as one (potentially two) of the defaults will be a year old. But who knows, at the moment we are concentrating on getting as much debt down so that if we do have to swallow a higher interest rate for a few years we won’t be too out of pocket. Keeping everything crossed!! 🤞🏼