If you’re new to the world of home buying and getting a mortgage it might seem that all you ever do is pay out money for things but get nothing in return. It is also the case with getting mortgage advice. Whether you’ve found Houses for sale Gloucester or anywhere else as long as you’ve found the house you want to buy, and you’ve got a deposit or you’ve managed to get a seller for yours and want to move on to the next property, you will now have to get mortgage advice. You also need to find yourself a Conveyancing Solicitors Cheltenham way that can support you through the legal process of buying and selling your home and transferring the mortgage monies from your chosen lender.
The reason is the financial crash of 2008. You could always get mortgage advice from banks and Building societies but you didn’t have to if you didn’t feel the need. It was a simple task of calling up the bank’s mortgage’s department and running through an application to get a mortgage promise. This was a soft credit check that did not leave a mark on your credit rating. It was a pretty simple form, you told the Mortgage Consultant or Sales person as it was known back then, what your income was from your job, plus any other sources. You told them everything that went out on Credit cards, store cards and loans. Everything else like living costs was, and still is, written into an algorithm. It usually came out with your salary multiplied by up to 3 or 4 times to get a figure that the bank could give you. The Sales person or Consultant would then read out all the rates you could have and the figures you would pay. You picked one and the Consultant had one less to worry about target wise that month. At no point could they give you any advice.
It was identified by the government that there was an inherent problem with this. First of all it was lending irresponsible at levels that people could possible not afford. Mortgages last for a long time and no account was taken for changing circumstances. We all have things that we pay for like Gym’s and kids club that now need to be accounted for and are not included in the algorithm. All mortgage sales people now have to have a professional qualification in Mortgage Advice and Practice to be able to take you through an application.
The best thing to do before you ring or meet with an advisor is to be prepared. Have all your income and outgoings down. You don’t always need food bills but if there is a club or something that costs you a month they will need to know about it. There will be questions to judge how you want the mortgage to run. For example if you need to know what you’re paying a month then they will propose a fixed rate. One thing that you will really need to know is what your budget is a month. This will define the length of the mortgage. You can no longer say “I want it for 20 years”.
