First time buyers: What happens at your first appointment with a mortgage advisor?
Buying your first house is a big step on to the property ladder, so before you do, it’s ideal to be armed with all the knowledge you need so you can be successful when you make that all important offer.
What you need to do straight off the bat
Go and talk to an Impartial Mortgage Advisor with access to the ‘whole of the market’ because you ideally want advice from someone who can access all the lenders and do all the shopping around for you. You may get an offer from your own bank, and that’s good, but it’s great to make sure it is the best offer available to you.
Your first meeting should be free and expect flexibility in how they meet you. You may need a home visit rather than going to an office, or a virtual meeting instead of a phone call? Advisors can fit their time around you.
The end goal
What you want is for the advisor to understand your needs, to help you know what your budget and affordability is, address any concerns and discuss options.
You’ll talk about what costs are involved, when things become payable and what budget you should set for legal fees, stamp duty and mortgage related costs. Then they’ll discuss what you can potentially borrow and what sort of deposit you may need.
They may also ask what advice you’ve had already because with regularly changing rates, budgets you worked out a month ago may no longer apply.
By the end of the meeting, you need to be confident about your next steps and that when you view a property you can afford to make an offer.
Being prepared will save you money
Be aware that the cheapest mortgage lender at the time you need to secure a mortgage may be inundated with applications. It can take up to four weeks for them to even assess mortgage documents before they begin to underwrite it.
To cope with the demand, they can withdraw their interest rates with as little as half a day’s notice which means that if you’re not ready to get the application in there and then, you will miss out and your interest rate and payment will be higher than you were expecting.
Make yourself the obvious choice to the seller
That’s why we think it’s so important to be prepared and see an Impartial Mortgage Advisor sooner rather than later, get a full fact find, provide all your documents, and get your affordability in place so that the moment you get a sale agreed you take advantage of whatever the best rate is for you and press the ‘go’ button!
For an impartial mortgage advisor, think about contacting our approved partner Assured Mortgage Advice to see if they suit you? CLICK HERE to visit their website or call 01480 473 084 to get in touch.