Mortgage advice for you to be at home with

This is a great question. Most of our clients aren’t 100% sure if they are ready yet.

Once you have a chat with us, you will know whether you’re in the right position to purchase.

Most first-time buyers will need a deposit. A small number of lenders offer 100% mortgages, usually with specific criteria, and borrowing the full purchase price carries a greater risk of negative equity if property prices fall.

Generally, lenders offer preferential rates to borrowers with larger deposits, so it’s worth saving as much as you can, as soon as you can.

This depends on your income, outgoings, existing debts and credit history. Lenders assess affordability individually and their criteria vary, so the amount you can borrow will differ from lender to lender.

Contact us if you have any questions.

Occasionally there are government schemes in place to help first-time buyers and certain key government workers obtain mortgages. These schemes can expire once targets are met, or withdrawn as and when decided by the government.

Therefore, when we assist first-time buyers in looking for an appropriate mortgage deal, we do as a matter of course refer to such government schemes when providing advice on mortgages, to see if any apply to the applicant.

When taking out your mortgage initially, you may have got a really good deal. But as the mortgage market changes, new deals become available. As a result, there might be a more suitable mortgage deal available.

If this proves to be so, remortgaging may reduce your costs, and you may not necessarily have to change lenders. Any saving needs to be weighed against the fees and charges involved.

This is dependent on how confident you are in dealing with the legalities of finance contracts, as they are legally binding once signed.

Before opting for a particular remortgage, read the small print of the new and your existing mortgage checking for things like; arrangement or product fees and any early repayment charges from your existing lender. These fees can add to the cost of remortgaging and might make remortgaging more expensive than staying on your current deal.

If in doubt please feel free to contact us.

You can remortgage at any time, but if it is not at the end of your current fixed or discount rate term, early repayment charges might be charged.

For most people, the optimal time to consider remortgaging is when the end of the current fixed or discount rate term is reached. Once reached the current mortgage deal may more than likely revert to a standard variable rate.

To be able to answer this, a number of factors should be taken into consideration, such as; what interest rate you can expect from a remortgage, according to the current market; whether you would wish to take additional equity from your home, for example to consolidate debts; and what fees might be involved with remortgaging i.e. could costs outweigh savings?

Think carefully before securing other debts against your home. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on a mortgage or any other debt secured on it.

A buy-to-let mortgage is a financial product aimed at a specific purpose i.e. people looking to buy a property in order to rent out, as opposed to actually living in it themselves.

Many buy-to-let mortgages are arranged on an interest-only basis, meaning the monthly repayments only cover the interest, not the amount borrowed (known as capital). The capital must be repaid in full at the end of the agreed term, so you will need a repayment strategy in place.

If you already have investments in stocks & shares, property can be one way of diversifying your portfolio. The potential benefits include rental income and growth in property prices, but neither is guaranteed and they need to be weighed against the costs and risks of being a landlord.

The first step is to get in touch with us. We will have an initial conversation to make sure that your circumstances are suited to buying a rental property. Once we determine what your situation is we can move from there. Informed decisions are the best decisions.

The process is similar to buying a home, but lenders apply their own criteria to buy-to-let, including the expected rental income, and there are additional costs and responsibilities as a landlord. We have been helping clients purchase buy-to-let properties for over 20 years and can guide you through each step.

It’s a product of property finance, that is specifically aimed towards business owners who wish to, or intend to buy property or land for commercial use.

In finance, the term commercial mortgage is associated with and comes under the umbrella of business finance a term used by some, or business loans a term used by others.

Mortgages used for the purchase of commercial property work in similar ways to that of residential mortgages used for a house or flat purchase.

Mortgage terms can commonly last up to 25 years, and many lenders will let the business borrow up to around 70% of the property’s value, with the business repaying the capital in regular instalments.

Yes, although we’d more often than not only really hear of Stamp Duty being mentioned or referred to when buying a residential property. Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is also payable on commercial property purchases.

As this mortgage lending product targets the business sector it does as a consequence carry a higher risk profile. Therefore, commercial lending will be more expensive than residential lending.

Some factors which may affect the interest are: the LTV (loan-to-value) ratio, business credit history, trading experience and business profitability.