Iz and I have spent most of today shopping around for a mortgage and it is frightening how much money they want to give us. Two of the three banks we got around today were offering us mortgages for houses up to £215,000.

Which is a lot.

Luckily for us we live in the North of England where the house prices aren't too mental, although they are slightly inflated for the area in the suburbs of York where we're looking (it's where the best state school in the area is and it's on the green belt.). What it basically means is that we can afford a fairly big family sized house with 2 or 3 bedrooms, which is a massive step up from the teeny tiny little bungalow/annexe we reside in currently

I'm getting old and responsible! Eep!

Any wise words from those select few house owning Massassians?

MAYBE THE NEXT STEP IS TO STOP LIVING IN SIN!

How bout some advice from a ex mortgage salesman?

I used to be a loan originator for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Here's a few things to consider.

Be careful about getting too big a loan, cause obviously, the higher the loan amount, the higher the payments, and the mortgage is one thing you absolutely must be able to pay every month.

How long do you intend to live in the house? 5 years, 10 years? If a short time frame, consider an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM). It will be a lower fixed rate for the first several years, which means less interest paid to the bank and more equity built. However, you must be careful with an ARM. Once the fixed period is up, your mortgage rate is subject to market conditions and it's possible you could get burned. So if you plan on being in the house for a while, or aren't sure, make sure to choose a fixed rate.

As you're shopping around, DO NOT LET ANYONE RUN YOUR CREDIT until you're ready to make a decision. Lots of mortgage companies will want to run your credit before giving you a quote to see what kind of interest rate you can get. But each time your credit is run, it will negatively affect your credit rating. Instead, ask the lender to just assume you have perfect credit and give you a quote based on that. Then, only consider the interest rate they give you in consideration to other lenders. Just recognize that if youre credit is less than perfect, you may have to pay a bit higher rate. Once you're ready to choose a mortgage company, then go back and have them run the credit and give you a final quote.

Anyway, hope this information helps. Good luck with the homebuying process!

I didn't realise being credit checked actually affects your credit rating so thanks for that Sarn! Luckily nobody has credit checked us yet but one bank did mention that they would credit check us if we came back to take it further.

We're planning on staying there for a long time (because we can afford a nice enough house) so we probably will go for a fixed rate. Also we won't be taking out one of the 215k-ers, more likely a 180k type effort which should keep the repayments more manageable.

So yeah, cheers

(Oh, and our credit is fine )

Keep your nose out, smellypants

roflrofl
<3 martyn

I was playing gears of war the other day and got a little bit blown up and exclaimed to Izzy that I 'sploded. I thought of you babybuns

Maybe you should ask Mort-Hog har har har

<3

When did 7 change his name back to landfish?

In any case, Sarn's advice is solid.

my god you are such a grown up.

stop it! it's freaky!

Of course it is. I'm a Smarty McSmartypants.

I know! I can't stop it now, it's gathered too much momentum!!

Eep!

there is a solution. But it will require an extensive commitment on your part. You'll need to go out and buy some Magic School Bus DVDs, a baseball cap with a propeller on top, and copious amounts of candy. Make use of these things at least twice daily.

I expect you to house me if im in the area!

Do the calculations on interest on your loan. If you can swing it, definitely go for a 15 year mortgage instead of 30 year. The 30 year looks better because of the deceptively lower payment, but you'll likely end up paying the bank THREE TIMES WHAT YOUR HOUSE IS WORTH.

25 years and twice over actually.

Borrow 180k and pay back 320k (as in pay for the house, and then the same again for the pleasure.)

We don't have the option of 15 years, and even if we did we'd only be able to afford a teenytiny house

Remember that the rules are slightly different between England and the US, so not everything Sarn says necessarily applies.

Certainly, I've never heard of credit checks altering your credit score as it is calculated in the UK, and when we arranged our mortgage, the term ARM never came up, so that could either be just different terminology or an option not available over here.

We arranged our mortgage through a financial adviser, but if you choose this route be aware of whether they're unbiased or not. The guy we had we didn't have to pay anything for, but he was still independent, as his company were paid the same whichever mortgage we went for (and they covered the whole of the market for mortgages), and he himself was salaried, so he had no vested interests at all.

Having re-read, ARM sounds like what is called a Fixed-Rate over here, as in, for the first X years you pay a fixed rate of Y%, and after that it tracks the base rate. However, after your X years you can switch to another mortgage more appropriate at that time - be it another fixed rate or a tracker or whatever.

Aye, that's what I read it to be too

I've got two friends who are financial advisors (you make some great contacts going to university!) who will be receiving phone calls from me in the not too distant future regarding the subject

You should use Señor Cardgage Mortgage.

Ok, so I realise this is Necromice territory but I sought special dispensation from Detty...

Iz and I just viewed a house that is perfect for us, and we're putting an offer on it first thing in the morning!! It's a 3 bedroom semi, it's cheap because it needs doing up (and we have the skills and cash to do that) and it has a massive garden! I really shouldn't be getting my hopes up because it's obviously a bidding war as of tomorrow morning but SOD IT I'M BOUNCING!!!!



But yay!

Is 'semi' the same thing as a duplex? That is, two houses stuck together?

semi detached... attached to another house on one side.

Good luck with the house

Nice house! Best of luck.

And if you need to... pursuade... the other bidders to stop bidding... It looks like MBeggar has brought the MBS back onto active duty.

*ah-chem.*

The Scram Jet is ready. We can be there in a couple of hours.

Sweeeeeet. I'm putting in an offer of £172k in the next half hour. I think they open at nine but I'm gonna try just after I've got dried (I'm all showermoist).

WOOOOOOWOOOOOOOOOOO!

Offer accepted! I just need to sort out some paperwork (and just to make everything that little more complicated my financial advisor who is holding said paperwork has broken his mobile phone) and it's ours to move into in a couple of months!

Huzzah!

congratulation's Martyn

Where abouts in the UK is the house? You should invite all the brit massassians for a house warming

w00t! Massassi Brute Squad strikes again!

(congratulations)

We be in the 'burbs of York... hang on -

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=461633&y=454387&z=1&sv=461633,454387&st=4&ar=Y&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf

Try that linky.

Nice, it's bang in the middle of the country. Well, if you think of the UK as one big one for about 10 seconds.

Yay Martyn, Boo growing up.

On the plus side I'm off to uni in September, so I can fill in some booze fuelled immaturity for a bit.