First Time Buyers:
A recently married couple looking to purchase their first home together after renting for the past three years. One of the applicants is in full-time employment in social services, and the other is self-employed, as the sole director of an IT waste disposal company.
The Property:
The couple had fallen in love with a three-bed family home in the Stourbridge suburbs.
The Finance:
As this was the couple’s first step onto the property ladder, they wanted to come in and meet their mortgage adviser — as our local advisor is based out of the offices of AP Morgan Estate Agents in Stourbridge, they were able to come in and visit.
After speaking with them, we had a few key points that we needed to take into consideration in order to decide the suitable lender to approach.
- Employment: one of the applicants had only been self-employed for 18 months. Being self-employed for less than three years can limit the number of finance options available to you.
- Source of deposit: As part of the deposit had been gifted to the couple by a parent, this limited the number of lenders available as not all lenders accept gifted deposits.
- Credit history: Both applicants had missed credit card payments in the past two years. Although these had now been paid, most lenders prefer clean credit profiles.
After assessing the options available to the clients, we decided that the couple’s current account holder would be the right bank to approach. We made sure to keep the clients kept up to date throughout the entire process — an offer was received within the month, and was completed within six weeks.