At Mortgage Success we love first time buyers! We love the excitement of hearing about how the search is going, the viewings, the congratulations email when you get an offer accepted and more than anything the call and/or email to tell you about the mortgage offer!
It is without doubt the best part of the job and even after 10 years, we still get that buzz.
This post is aimed at what to do and expect in the process.
First Steps of house buying
It is never a bad idea to have a conversation with a broker. We receive a lot of calls/emails from people testing the water to find out whats possible and the next steps. If you want to call us to check, thats fine we are more than happy to help.
Initially we will ask a few questions:
- How much your income is,
- How much deposit you have,
- Whether you have any commitments,
- Whether you have any bad credit.
With the answers to those questions we can usually give you a ball park of how much you can obtain and what sort of rates you will be looking at.
Assuming the above is something you can work with we ask you to complete a factfind. A factfind is document where we get all of your information down on paper. This allows us to check whether or not there may be any potential problems in the rest of your circumstances. Assuming all is ok, it is then safe to go and start looking for properties. You may or may not need a Decision in Principle (DIP), this is something that seems to vary by agent. We can help you get one of these if needed.
Steps after finding a property
Once you find a property you would normally make an offer and there may be some back and forth between yourself/the agent and vendor. All being well you will agree on a price.
At that point if you go via ourselves we will happily take over and deal with the agents on your behalf. That means we will ask the agents to call us if they want to chase.
But with regards to yourself, we would do the research and get you some accurate and up to date rates. Especially at the minute, rates are all over the place. If you are happy with them we can then get your application in and we will deal with the underwriters on your behalf.
We can see it through to offer, at which point the solicitors tend to take over. But as we say to everyone – we are still on hand once your offer has been issued.
After the offer has been issued
After your offer has been issued the solicitors will start their searches and make you aware of anything they think you need to know about. This process takes around 8 weeks give or take. Once all of that is completed a completion date is agreed.
Come completion day you get to pick up the keys almost as importantly we get to do our favourite part of the process – congratulate you and wish you all the best in your new home!