Budget planning – essential to obtaining mortgage finance.
With MMR in mind, we are still seeing long delays across the market in customers obtaining appointments at local branches, as well as general processing delays. Some lenders are not taking appointments for three or four weeks, are ten working days behind on processing, and we have experienced recent telephone calls taking over an hour to receive a response! These are just on the broker side so heaven knows how customers are faring!
With all new mortgages, a budget planner will be required. So make sure you know and can advise exactly how much you are spending on your lifestyle. Especially make sure you know your monthly costs on food, household expenses, travel, pension and saving contributions and other likely costs such as hobbies, going to the gym, lottery direct debits and more. Every lender will review your ability to afford your new mortgage over coming years so all direct debits and most entries on your bank statements or credit report will need to be advised. This is so the lender can make a viable stress test on future rate rises and ensure that you will still be able to afford your mortgage at that time. Yes, maybe there is a little guess work, but do make sure you disclose all monthly expenditure as the lender will normally want to review your bank statements and will see it all anyway!