Getting a mortgage was always going to be hard for us. We’re in our thirties and have spent most of our lives without any savings. On top of that, I’m self-employed and my husband has had a few career chops and changes before deciding to start a business from scratch. Although we have no trouble paying our bills every month, mortgage providers aren’t so keen on our on-paper credentials.
With this in mind, we’ve had to look at lots of options when it comes to mortgages. There is an option where a loved one can help you boost your income to get a higher chance of approval. This mortgage is called joint borrower sole proprietor. For us, it’ll be a little different to walking into the bank we’ve been with since birth and asking what they can lend us.
One of the positives of our less-traditional mortgage needs is that we’ve had chance to research what’s out there. This means I can find something that suits our family best. Having three children means we’re well past being able to get set up in ‘starter home’.
If we were a few years younger, pre-family life, we’d have looked for a compact two-bedroom house to get onto the property ladder. These days, we need more space. We’ve got loads of toys we’ve got to find a home for, not to mention somewhere for the kids to sleep.
Below are some of the things we’ve checked out to see the best path for us to take. We’re still undecided but feel much better informed.
UK Mortgage Calculator
The first thing we did was put some figures into a UK mortgage calculator to get an idea of finances. We had an idea of the price of house we’d be looking at and how much we’d want to pay back monthly but had no idea about how much we’d need to save for a deposit. After trying a few figures we realised we’ll probably need about £25,000 as a down payment. This figure is a bit lower than the national average because house prices in our area are lower, but it’s still a hefty sum!
Help to Buy ISA
We left it too late with this one, and didn’t open one in time to take advantage of it. As my husband had previously had a mortgage a few years ago, we couldn’t get any clarification on how this would work for us as a couple, but it’s possible it would never have been a viable option. Thankfully we’ve looked at other help to buy schemes.
Shared Ownership
Shared ownership is something we’ve looked at seriously on a couple of occasions. There’s a village a couple of minutes down the road from our current home that we’d like to buy a house in eventually. Our kids go to the village school and my sister lives there too. They had one house left on a new housing development that offered 50% shared ownership.
At the time, with a bit of a financial shuffle we might have been able to it, but after looking around we quickly realised it would have been too much of a squeeze for the kids and their millions of toys.
We haven’t ruled out this option for the future, but it would have to be our perfect home for us to take the plunge.
Help to Buy Equity Loan
This is another option that we’ve looked into and may still consider. The government offer a low interest loan towards your deposit on a newbuild property. There are houses still being build on the outskirts of the village we want to move to, so this might be our most realistic option for the future.
Asked Friends for Recommendations
We’re of an age where most of our friends own homes now. In the past year a few of my friends have bought their first home, moved or had a mortgage consultation. When it comes up in conversation I ask lots of questions and try to get details of things that have helped them. We’ve got a couple of numbers for mortgage advisors when the time is right and a list of questions to ask, and lots of things to consider. We’re definitely better prepared for buying our first home now, we’ve just got a hefty chunk of cash to save!