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Do I Need a Mortgage Broker?

The decision to use a mortgage broker or not is completely up to you. They can be very helpful in getting you the best possible mortgage rates and provide a lot of advice and guidance during the process on what offers you can put in. Brokers are experts in home buying, and will support you to ensure your mortgage application is correct, and fight in your corner. They’ll also tell you which banks will give you a mortgage, which can be so handy at the earlier stages.

In our experience, we used one but later had issues with our broker leaving us in the lurch and not giving us reference numbers from the bank. When we moved to the completion stage, we hadn’t heard from him for a month and almost lost the house! We went to his company and could get things moving thankfully due to the owner having to step in and help.

How Much Can I Borrow for a Mortgage?

At the moment, banks give you on average 4.5 times your salary (although some banks give more, so look individually as it depends on your personal circumstances) more for a mortgage. If you’re earning £30,000 per year, then you’d look at getting up to £135,000 for your mortgage. Which means if you’ve saved up a £50,000 deposit, you could make offers up to £185,000 on a property. You can use MoneySavingExpert’s mortgage affordability calculator to estimate how much you’d averagely be allowed to borrow for a mortgage.

Timeline of House Buying Process

Buying a house isn’t like renting. It will not be done and dusted in a couple of weeks, or a month. Unfortunately, the process of buying property is time-consuming and drawn out. It’s a lengthy legal process, but it comes with an epic reward at the end – you get to own your own house. It’s worth it. We promise. Here are all the steps to buying a house.

Preparation

Buying a home requires plenty of legwork and preparation at the start before you look at properties. You want to be on the ball, and ready to put in an offer when you’re viewing places, which means you need to have everything sitting and ready to go first.

Organise Your Paperwork

Your first job is to collect all the relevant paperwork you’ll need. It’s a laborious task, but you’ll need to do it both to get your offer in principle, and then again to get your mortgage – as usually by that point months will have passed and you’ll need new bank statements.

These are the documents you’ll need:

• 3 months of payslips
• 3 months of bank statements
• Proof of address
• ID such as a passport/driving licence

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Get an Offer in Principle

Before you look at properties, you need to get an offer in principle so that you can move quickly if you see somewhere you like. There are two ways to do this, you can use a mortgage broker, or go directly to the mortgage lender.

When you get your offer in principle, you will get a document with it on, which allows you to use this with estate agents to prove you have the capital there to make an offer. If you don’t have this, you won’t be taken seriously when you’re viewing houses.

Find a Solicitor/Conveyancer & Surveyor

A conveyancer is a lawyer who specialises in home-ownership, and can help you with all the legal aspects of buying a house. When you’re looking for your conveyancer you want to consider a couple of things:

• Reviews – are they good?
• Fees – are they charging competitively?
• Do they charge a fee per offer you put in? Some do and some don’t, it can work out cheaper if they don’t!
• What are their response times like?

A surveyor is someone who specialises in viewing properties and examining properties and highlighting any issues with them that could affect the price, and that you may need to fix one day. You’ll want to have them on hand to view a property when you’re interested.

Photo from house viewing Essex 2022

Create a Checklist of What You Want

Before even looking at a property, you’ll likely have an idea in your mind of absolute must-haves your future home needs, and things that you absolutely want to avoid. Create a checklist of what these are, but remember the more specific you are then the smaller your search pool is. Remember, you’re buying this home so you can make changes if you can afford to.

You’ll want to consider things like:

• Detached/semi-detached/terraced/ground-floor flat/top-floor flat/etc
• Number of bedrooms
• Number of bathrooms and is there one on each floor?
• Garden/outdoor spaces
• What’s nearby? Is it close to a main road? Does it have good transport links?
• How convenient is it for shops/school/activities?
• Bath/shower?

Viewing Homes

Begin your search by looking on websites and apps. Not all of them show up on every single one, so the best way to find everything that’s available is to spread yourself across them all. There’s RightMove, On The Market, Zoopla, and Purple Bricks, as a general guide, but you can also look up more local estate agents to your area.

At the beginning, you can book viewings just to get a feel for how they work. If you live in Scotland, there’s an extra step here where you can request the home report after you’ve seen a place online that you like and then examine it for any issues before you book a viewing.

If you find an area that you particularly like, sign up to all the local estate agents there. They will take down your preferences and contact you when something comes up on the market in the area before it goes out for general listing. It’s worth their time to sell a property as quick as they can.

During The Viewing

Here’s a handy viewing checklist of things to investigate when you’re viewing properties. You can ask the estate agent questions and go around checking things. Don’t be afraid to be thorough.

• Turn on and off all the taps and shower to check the pressure and make sure they work. Some properties that have been lying empty may have the water turned off though.
• Open and close windows and doors. Are the windows double glazed? How much noise can you hear from outside?
• Is there a smoke alarm and does it meet current regulations?
• Are there any security measures?
• If you’re viewing a flat, note the door entry system, is it up-to-date? Does it seem secure?
• Also, when viewing a flat, are the communal areas well maintained and looked after? Are there ongoing factor fees or additional charges you need to budget for?
• Is there ample storage?
• Where are the power sockets located? Are there enough?
• What broadband and TV connections are there?
• What sort of heating is it? Is it dual fuel?
• Is there parking?
• Have there been any recent works carried out in the building? If it’s a flat, are there any communal works due that you might be charged for
• How well insulated is it?
• Is it warm? Cold
• Are there any funny or odd smells as you walk around? Does it smell damp? (Some agents try to cover the smell of damp or nicotine by spraying Febreeze around.)
• How much is the council tax?
• What’s the EPC rating?
• What are the neighbours like? Do they seem pleasant? Do you notice any noise from the neighbours inside the house?
• Is it a noisy area outside?
• If there is a garden, is it well kept?
• Are there any noticeable structural issues on the exterior or interior?

Click Image For Large Copy – Photos From Some of Our House Viewings

Putting an Offer In

Okay, you’ve found a property you like and now you want to put an offer in. The first step is research. Look up the house prices of properties nearby, you can do this easily on sites like RightMove and Zoopla, and it allows you to see what the current market rate is for that street.

While the property is still on the market, you can register your interest with your conveyancer and they’ll contact the sellers to let them know. This means they can’t sell the property without you finding out, giving you the opportunity to put an offer in.

Some properties go to a closing date, which is where there’s quite a lot of interest and everyone has to put their offer in by 12pm Friday 2 September, for example. Others, you can put your offer in whenever. You contact your solicitor and state your offer. Your offer needs to contain some details:

• The full name of the borrower
• Current address
• Address of property you want to purchase
• Offer price
• Any specific conditions of the offer (if white goods are to be left, etc)
• Is it a cash offer or are you getting a mortgage?

Then, the conveyancer sends that to the seller and you have the stressful task of waiting to find out whether you were successful.

If the offer isn’t accepted, brush it off and move on. They don’t legally have to tell you how much it went for. They may contact you and suggest you bump it up a little, it’s up to you to decide if you want to.

If the offer is accepted – congratulations!

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Once Your Offer is Accepted

Once you’ve had a successful offer, you can book your surveyor to view the property. In Scotland, you can skip this step (but you don’t have to, plenty of people get their own surveyors anyway). They’ll provide you with a detailed home report that makes you aware of any issues that might need repaired either immediately, or soon after.

You’ll have to contact your broker (or mortgage lenders, if you’ve skipped the broker part) and apply for an actual mortgage now. The lender will look at you, your credit history (and this is where the second part of all that tedious paperwork comes in) and also examine the property and decide whether they think it’s worth lending the money for.

You can also have searches done on the property, and your solicitor/conveyancer/broker will help you with this part. Each one comes with their own fee, but it’s things like drainage, local authority and environmental searches.

Remember, nothing is set in stone until you complete and exchange on the property. Don’t celebrate until that’s done as the sellers could back out, you might not get your mortgage approved, anything could happen! It’s a lengthy process, and will take time.

Exchange Contracts

The exchange of contracts is the point where you can no longer walk away, and neither can the seller. The moment you exchange contracts, you’re legally bound to buy that property. That means you need to get insurance for it, your broker may help with this or you can go directly to insurance providers.

You also want to negotiate a completion date with the sellers. Sometimes they might want to wait before moving out if they are still in the chain with their own property buying process. But you might need to move in soon. So it’s best to open those conversations as early as possible.

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Upon Completion

During this process your deposit is being sent to the seller, more searches are being carried out in the background to make sure you’ve not gone bankrupt and that the sellers actually own the property they’re selling. You’ll get a completion statement and need to sign the transfer deed which confirms you’re happy to own the property.

Once all of that’s completed – congratulations you’ve made it! You just have to wait and pick up the keys. You own a home! Now you can get out the bubbly.

General Home Buying Tips and Tricks

We’ve put together a list of the tips and tricks we learned during the entire home buying process, which can help you keep on top of things during the busy (and sometimes exceedingly lengthy) process of buying a house.

• View houses during the weekday if you can as you’ll have less competition from other viewers and have time to put offers in faster.
• Check for properties every day. It’s a busy market right now so properties can come and go to a closing date quickly. Sometimes, there could be limited viewings so you want to get in as early as possible.
• When creating your budget, don’t forget to account for things like moving costs, solicitor’s fees, stamp duty (if applicable), survey costs, etc.