Halifax has announced a new exciting change to its mortgage application criteria, that is due to take effect on the 12th of August 2024. In a message to all mortgage brokers this morning, Halifax announced that they will now accept foreign income mortgage...
Louis Mason
What Is The Own New Scheme?
The property market is constantly evolving, with prospective homeowners on the lookout for the best opportunities to secure their dream home. And with things like rising house prices and higher cost of living, it is becoming more difficult for people to make that leap...
Lenders Lower SVR Mortgages In Line With Bank of England
In a welcome move for homeowners with SVR mortgages, several leading mortgage lenders have already announced reductions in their Standard Variable Rate (SVR) mortgages following the Bank of England's decision to lower the base rate earlier this month. Effective from...
Cancer and Life Insurance Case Study
Our client’s mother had breast cancer in the past and she wanted to make sure that she was covered in case she too developed cancer. A straight forward life insurance application turned out to be quite difficult as the majority of insurance companies excluded cancer meaning that they would not cover a potential future cancer diagnosis for the clients.
Equity Release Is Popular With Pensioners
If recent events have taught us anything it is that jobs, income, and cashflow aren’t always as straight forward and secure as we might think. Sometimes, no amount of planning can prepare you for unexpected events and now more than ever, it is difficult to know how to make sure that you are financially secure when the economy is so uncertain.
Decline in Help To Buy applications evident
Since 2013 the government in conjunction with house builders has offered the Help to Buy scheme which was developed with the intention of helping struggling prospective home buyers to fund the purchase of a new build property. Initially the scheme was set to run until 2020 but was slightly restructured and extended until 2023. The scheme was an instant hit and people flocked in their thousands to make the most of a really incredible helping hand.
Interest in shared ownership rising
For many years, shared ownership was a rather specialist and quite uncommon means of purchase as most people understandably want to purchase an entire property rather than part of a property! However, as house prices have increased by 4.3% on average every year since 2011, it is becoming more and more difficult for people to both save enough deposit to buy a property and earn enough money to meet the mortgage lending required to purchase a whole property.
Deposit unlock scheme gives new hope for home buyers
Over the last few years there has been a lot of talk around deposits or, more specifically, the struggles that new buyers go through to save a deposit. With banks and building societies restricting lending and becoming seemingly more demanding when it comes to customer cash contributions, new buyers have become disillusioned with the whole idea and feel penalised by banks, building societies and home sellers in favour of older, more experienced purchasers.
Mortgage borrowing at the end of 2021 – Our take
Official figures release by the bank of England shows that both gross and net borrowing figures dropped across the board in December 2021. With January 2022 figures still to come, what can we say about this?
New Build – Answering questions you need to know
The UK government has pledged to try and build 300,000 new homes every year by the mid-2020s. In this blog we will go through some of the most common questions people have when they first start looking at new build homes.
Clients with credit issues are rejected by their bank
Our clients were looking to buy a property together and had put in an offer which had been accepted. Thinking it would probably be the easiest option, they went direct to their own bank to seek a new mortgage however our clients had some financial difficulty in the past and as a result they had defaults and missed payments on their credit files. When their bank ran a credit check on the clients it failed due to the adverse credit in the background and their bank was unable to offer them a mortgage.
Shared Ownership Misinformation Case Study
Our client and her partner found an ideal property through a large house builder on a shared ownership basis and was looking forward to the prospect of owning her first real home. However, despite the excitement they both felt, they were also extremely nervous as she had been told plenty of conflicting information about the best way of getting a mortgage by the builder, her friends, and her own internet research.
Deposit – What will I need?
Deposit. Probably the most common word you hear during the house buying process and, perhaps the one that makes people the most apprehensive. With any property purchase, unless you are lucky enough to buy in cash, you will need some form of property finance loan such as a mortgage. And, with any kind of mortgage, you will normally need to contribute some of your own funds towards the purchase.
Halifax reports record number of first-time buyers
2021 was the most first-time buyer saturated year in at least 10 years according to Halifax intermediaries coming off the back of a year of pandemic uncertainty.
Credit score – Does it really make a difference?
Perhaps the oldest question in the book of mortgages, do I need a good credit score to get one? For years people have avoided getting a mortgage because of their ‘less than perfect’ credit score and hundreds of thousands of people have missed out on some perfect properties due to black and white mortgage lenders and inexperienced advisors.
We're Here to Help
If you have any questions about UK mortgage news or anything you’ve read then please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.