After the year we’ve had, it’s understandable that many people don’t want to take on the additional burden of a bigger mortgage to buy their dream home.
As I’ve already explained in a previous article, if you do want to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday, which closes on March 31st next year, and you haven’t got the ball rolling already then you really do need to get your skates on if you’re to have any chance of completing before the deadline.
But for a lot of people, the lack of job security that comes as a result of the gloomy predictions about the UK economy over the coming 12 months or more has given pause for thought.
Lockdown may have been tough for many of us, but what it certainly has done is give homeowners the opportunity to experience their property up close and personal and see it warts and all.
Living in a house in ‘normal’ times is very different to being confined to it, especially if you have school-age children who were sharing that space with you for the five months between the end of March and the beginning of September.
What some of us have found is that the spaces we once thought perfectly adequate have narrowed. The kitchen that seemed to be tired by functional has been found wanting. Windows need replacing. The hot summer exposed the lack of relaxing spaces in the garden. And with the house full of people, the need for an en suite has never been starker.
For others – the empty-nesters or those in later life who now find themselves living alone – it’s the sometimes overwhelming surplus of unused space that may have been the most noticeable thing.
Pre-Covid our thoughts may have turned at some point to upsizing or downsizing to find a space more suited to our needs.
But with the housing market effectively shut down for three months of this year and uncertainty reigning in the economy, we’ve had the opportunity to be a little more creative in how we view our own homes and the ways in which we can either create more space or make the extra space we have more useable.
More than that, the sudden spike in demand from homebuyers when the property market reopened at the end of June was also a factor in driving house prices up to what many people consider artificially high levels – cooling interest from prospective buyers who might like to move house, but don’t need to.
If you fall into either of these categories, then remortgaging could well be the best move you could make if you’re nervous about taking on significantly more mortgage debt but really need to make your home work differently for you.
According to the online news portal Financial Reporter, remortgaging applications were up 11% on normal levels during October this year – the sixth month running that remortgage activity was above market norms.
And with lenders now becoming more circumspect in mortgage lending for purchases (again, my earlier article this month looked at the way banks and building societies were squeezing the availability of high loan-to-value (LTV) borrowing), there are good deals to be had from banks and building societies that may be attracted by loans that represent lower risk.
All that said, any form of charge on your house – where someone else, in this case a lender, owns part of your property – is something that needs to be thought through carefully and we’d always advise you to speak to a professional adviser to get the advice that best suits your specific needs.
At Oportfolio, we work with our clients to help them find the solutions that will best suit their lifestyle and their financial situation – bot now and in the future – to make sure they get the home they want at a price they can afford.
And on top of that, we take all the stress out of the remortgage process by ensuring we’ve thought about and addressed potential issues long before a lender sees your application – putting you in the best possible position to be accepted for the loan you need.
So, if you’re looking to create a dream home out of your existing property and are thinking about remortgaging as a way of financing it, why not get in touch for an informal chat and see how we can help to turn that dream into reality for you?
Oportfolio Limited is an appointed representative of Primis Mortgage Network, a trading name of First Complete Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority
Your property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
Oportfolio Ltd fees are payable on application. We charge a broker fee for property purchases of £495 and a remortgage/further advance fee of £395. Our product transfer fee is £295.
