First Time Buyers

Clurr's just brought her first house. Hopefully she'll be around soon.

3 years ago we did, its not as simple as i thought itd be!! theres so much involved in buying a house in way of fees. They did it on my wages alone at the time as i worked for the bank so meant less checks etc and they said i could get something silly like 8times my wages!!

ETA - ours was a 90% mortgage!

About 4 years ago i bought my first house and i think it was 4x my wage or if id of bought with a partner, 3x.

Not a first time buyer but we're getting (if it's still around when we move) a 95% LTV mortgage so there are some out there.

Oh and it was a 100% mortgage at the time! But think theyre extinct with the dodo's now...

I don't think most lenders base it on a multiple of your salary anymore it's all done through "affordability", which involves telling them your nett monthly income and explaining to them all of your monthly outgoings. In quite some considerable detail. You then have to provide 3 months worth of bank statements to prove your regular outgoings. They'll assess affordability on both your incomes and outgoings if it's a joint mortgage.

Mine was 3 years ago too, just before it all crashed.

We got one of the last 95% LTV mortgages before they pulled them all off the market, fixed rate for 2 years, now on a variable rate.

Solicitors cost us around £2k and 1% stamp duty (under £250k)

Moving is expensive!!

Thanks for this. When I bought my first house it was 4x one salary or 3.5x of one salary and 1x the second applicants salary. I have heard of it going up to 7 or 8 times your salary but wasn't sure if they had knocked that on the head with the 100% mortgages (which is what I had before!). I am wondering if it is worth looking into because I may have wrongly assumed that H & I would not stand a chance in getting accepted for a mortgage.

We've recently remortgaged something and have an application in place for something else - it depends on affordability but 3 x joint income seems to be pretty standard still. Bear in mind most places won't consider a FTB without a minimum of a 10% deposit but most places want 15-20%.

Consider not only what you need to borrow for the house but things like fees, moving costs, stamp duty (if applicable to you).

Shop around for rates. Some banks/building societies offer preferential rates, particularly if you have private banking account(s) or, potentially, business accounts.

think with me, they offered me 8 times my salary as i worked for the bank that was providing my mortgage so they basically had a hold on me!! I doubt they do it now tho, prob scrapped along with 100% mortgages sadly ☹️

We bought our house almost 4 years ago, right at the height of the market. Bought for £228k and got a mortgage of £205k (almost 90%). We got an interest only mortgage on a variable rate, which was over £1,000 when we took it out but is now £254 a month!

It was loosely based on our wages, but both our families had banked with Barclays for years and they're our business bank too, so I think that helped.

Stamp Duty rules have recently changed so that first time buyers don't pay it on anything under £250k.

We bought our house last September. My credit score is crap so it's just in H's name. It was quite tricky as H's salary is pretty naff, but his over time and bonuses really bump it up. Even he has earned roughly the same amout every month for almost 4 years, most places would only lend based on his basic salary, which just wasn't enough.

In the end we went with a mortgage advisor from a Dixons EA and she was brillaint. We were going to just give up and buy a flat but she managed to get us the amount we needed to borrow for a house.

What percentage deposit do you have? We found that most places wanted more than the 10% we had.

In terms of getting approved it was fairly easy, easier than I has anticipated anyway. And if H's salary was all basic rather than bonus etc. I think it would have been even easier.

We started looking in May and moved in at the beginning of Sept so quite quick.

House buying depresses me. We have a comfortable joint income but it looks like we'll either have to move far out of London or live in a box in a ghetto, essentially.

With this sort of thing, Panj, just make sure you do your sums. Borrowing that much is great all the time you're on a fixed deal or your income is guaranteed to rise. Make sure you can still afford the repayments if they rise substantially when a fixed deal ends. I don't mean to sound doom and gloom, far from it, but it is worth thinking about.

Not too cheeky!

#amabittersellerstrugglingtosell

Tbh, I'd be surprised if that's affordable even on a decent fixed rate!

We will have lots of saving to do if we are going to need a 20% deposit. Where do people magic up that kind of money from? We'd be looking at a £45,000 deposit. It would take us a very long time to save that kind of money.

They either buy a smaller property/in a cheaper area and trade up in due course, have parents who help them out with deposits, earn a larger salary, are dedicated savers - all sorts of things.

Owning a home isn't a right, so many factors come in to play. Get saving and keep an eye out for a bargain. There are still places out there that will require work but will make a lovely home.

And to think, when my parents were buying their first homes they were purchasing at 2.5/3 times one salary not two!

I'm afraid this is pretty much the norm at the moment and the reason why a lot of my friends cant get on the property ladder.

This, and lots of those who are can't move up the property ladder.

We borrowed ours from Mr B's parents. He already owned a house, but it wasn't the right time to sell it. We paid it back to them monthly. I do acknowledge that we were hugely lucky to have this. My sister and her husband have been renting the same house for 5 years and just don't have the income to be able to save up for a deposit. They're hoping to buy a new build where the developer offers some kind of incentive to help them out. There are a few of these available if someone wants a new build.

We've been given help (as you know) in order to upgrade. Without the help there is no way we could have afforded to move to something bigger and more importantly the area we want.

P!sses me off that I have been on the property ladder once and jumped off (walked away with nothing) but it was definitely worth the jump as I am so much happier.

My advice would be to get a decent mortgage broker, m'dear. If you don't meet FTB criteria you don't get the benefit of the incentives out there for them. A decent broker is worth their weight in gold!

It will probably be the same for us in a few years time. If help isn't available then we'll probably rent our flat out and rent a house. We'd probably be able to afford a mortgage on a bigger place by then but it's the costs associated with moving that we wouldn't have. Estate agents commission, SDLT etc. So fecking expensive!

We bought our place about 2.5 years ago.

It was all very spur of the moment though. We went into an estate agents one saturday morning just to see what they'd say, and they offered us a mortgage in principle stright away. 6 weeks later we'd moved into our house.

We were offered just under 4x joint salary, and we gave just over 20% deposit which opened up some better mortgage deals.

It's definately worth seeing what you're offered and taking it from there

Panj, what are property prices like in your neck of the woods?

I bought my first house 4 years ago all by myself! It seemed to take ages but it wasn't particularly difficult, but I am lucky that paperwork doesn't scare me given my line of work! I borrowed about 4,5 times my wages back then, not sure if you can still borrow that much. LTV was about 83%.

In process of buying my second house at the moment which is proving to be more painful!

We were lucky enough for this to happen. OH has a trust fund of 70k but he can't touch it until he is 28 (next year) his Mum lent us the total price of the house and we pay them back £400 a month. We will pass the 70k to them when he gets it and just pay off the remainder. So bloody lucky and I am so so so grateful for it. I love his parents x

For the ind of house we would be looking buy, it would be around £220k. That would be to move into something like what we are currently renting. We could look at buying somewhere smaller but with H having 3 kids (1 of who I think is moving in with us next summer and one of whom we have most weekends) and wanting to expand on that and hopefully having a baby myself, we are going to need a decent sized house. I would rather rent than buy and have to live in a rough neighbourhood (call me a snob but I have put up with horrid neighbours in the past and I would never want to go through that again).

Come and live in my neck of the woods Panj, prices soon drop then! ?

I know what you mean though, we brough our house cheap, not the best neighbourhood at all. But at the time we thought it would be best to get somewhere cheap and cheerful to get on the ladder. A part of me does regret that now and wish we'd gone for a better area and paid more.