We received an email from a lender last week. The email was regarding gig workers and whether or not they can get a mortgage. It was quite interesting as its not something I had ever thought about before but it was quite surprising reading soem of the stats.
Did you know?
Around 22% of non-traditional workers have never tried to secure a mortgage? They main reason was to do with worryng about being declined. I am a big believer in if you do not ask, you do not get. So if you never try, you will never get a mortgage.
The survey of around 2,000 non-traditional workers – including self-employed workers, freelancers, and gig economy workers – a quarter said that they had never applied because they would not be approved.
18% of those surveyed said that they had never applied for a mortgage as they had heard it was more difficult to secure a mortgage if they were self-employed.
10% said they did not know how to apply for a mortgage.
8% did not know who to speak to about securing one.
Another 8% thought that as they had less than 2 years accounts they would be unable to get a mortgage.
The report found that seven in 10 had been dissuaded due to bad experiences of friends or colleagues.
How can we help?
Lets go through the above in order…
Fear of rejection or too difficult?
Fear of being declined – well that in itself has the same outcome as being declined. So first thing first, drop us a message or give us a call. If we cant help, we will tell you what needs to be done in order to get you on the housing ladder.
The 18% who thought it would be more difficult, they are probably right. It will likely be a little more difficult. But as your broker, thats our problem. Give us what we ask for and let us deal with the donkey work. We will work the same way we do for all of our clients… Take the information, come back with your options and if you choose to proceed we will deal with more or less everything for you. Hows that for fixing the problem?
Lack of know how
10% who said they did not know how to apply, thats fine too. As above, come and dump everything on us and we will deal with it all for you. We have fixed another problem.
The same for the 8% who did not know who to speak to… Us! (Or in the interests of being unbiased, speak to any broker. I am sure most will be able to help).
Lack of accounts?
Another 8% who did not have 2 years worth of accounts. This is another easy fix, there are lenders (at normal rates) who can work with one years accounts. So hopefully that fixes that issue for a lot of people. However if you do not have 1 years accounts, we MIGHT be able to work off payments from the likes of Deliveroo, Uber etc – but that might make things a little trickier and reduce your options. But again, there is no harm in having the conversation is there? It will only cost you 10-15 minutes.
Bad experience?
7 in 10 had been disuaded by friends who have had a bad experience! Thats terrible. However at Mortgage Success we are a small local friendly company. We have won awards including the Financial Reporter Adviser of the year award in 2023. We also have 5 star reviews on trustpilot and google you can take a look at. There is no cost involved for our initial chat and we only get paid if you get your mortgage.
Summary
It was quite interesting reading the report as I was looking at it thinking “we can help with that”, “we can help with that”… There is no reason for maybe 90% of those people to be put off from buying a home.
If you would like to have a chat – no costs, no sales pitch etc just to get an idea if you can get a mortgage and at what sort of rates, get in touch. Being a gig worker is not a deal breaker when applying for a mortgage.