Getting onto the housing ladder feels impossible to many unless you are fortunate enough to benefit from the bank of mum and dad. Without this luxury, especially if you are in rented accommodation, then saving for a substantial deposit after paying your monthly rent is tough.

Help to Buy gives an opportunity to those who can achieve the following;

1)      Have a 5% deposit

2)      Pass an affordability calculation with HTB London (we can help you with this)

3)      Mortgage cannot be more than 4.5 x your annual income(s) – single or joint income

4)      Get an agreement in principal with a specialist HTB mortgage lender – we can assist here too

Once the above is achievable, and you have a property in mind (sadly it must be a new build property which is accepted in advance with the Help to Buy scheme), then you can apply via Help to Buy London to secure this part of the finance.

The way HTB, in London, works is that the scheme loans you a 40% interest-free loan for 5-years, you put down your 5% deposit and the lender will loan up to 55% loan-to-value.

After 5-years you can either repay this equity loan back to HTB or you then start paying interest, presently at a rate of 1.75% (increasing annually by the RPI + 1%). Many customers of us have benefited from house price increases and have re-mortgaged to repay this equity loan. Obviously, this is highly dependent on house prices increasing and not a strategy you can plan for.

Securing finance via HTB London needs experienced professionals (for legal and mortgage work) around you to ensure the proceed is as slick as it can possibly be.  Thankfully, this shouldn’t cost you anymore in fees than you would normally pay – for a start if you use our services, we will NEVER charge you a broker fee and we know HTB inside out! 

If you are not using us then we urge you to ask the mortgage adviser when he / she last did a HTB mortgage and how many do they normally do – this will give you an idea and save you a massive headache as they try to figure out the demanding processes. Same goes for the solicitor / conveyancer!

So, these are the pros and cons.  On balance we feel that the scheme is a great way to get onto the housing ladder especially in this present market whereby new homes are having to ensure their pricing is comparable to the second-hand stock on the market.

We act for many buyers in key new build areas such as Woolwich, Greenwich, Deptford, Charlton, Brockley and Eltham and, as mentioned earlier, we do not charge broker fees so book your initial consultation and take advantage of our experience.

The post Does Help to Buy really help first time buyers? appeared first on Conran Mortgages.

With Brexit now delayed until the last quarter of 2019 many homeowners, with mortgages, are highly concerned about the effect on Brexit when it comes to the cost of their monthly mortgage payments.

As an independent mortgage broker, we keep a keen eye on the mortgage marketplace, both in our local areas (Greenwich, Brockley, Eltham, Charlton – South East London generally), and nationally. After all, we are a national mortgage brokerage so why wouldn’t we!

What we are presently seeing is a big spike in re-mortgage applications as homeowners are confident that post-Brexit interest rates are likely to rise and therefore want to lock-into a deal now.

Whilst I can’t be certain of this fact (interest rates rising post-Brexit), there are many considerations when it comes to the future of the UK’s interest rates.  If the housing market goes bonkers then there is a chance the Bank of England will increase rates to control this which in turn will increase lending rates. There is also commercial consideration with mortgage lenders competing against their peers and having to compete on rates along with loan-to-values (LTV), especially at higher LTV’s – this is great for those whose property values have not increased or are simply on a high LTV mortgage.

We are finding that we can start the re-mortgage process up to 6-months before the expiry of an existing product meaning that borrowers will be assured that their new rate is locked-in, meaning they can account for their financial future.

We are fee free and fully independent which is why our customers love us – read our reviews on Feefo on this website so you know exactly what our customers think of us! If you like what you see then use this website to either use us online, in person or over the phone – you choose and be prepared to use a mortgage broker who doesn’t use pressurised sales tactics which no one likes, let’s be honest!

The post Brexit helping Remortgaging? appeared first on Conran Mortgages.