You might have seen some of our posts on social media over the last month or 2 which we called “Dave says”.
We started these posts after hearing one too many people say that they have been told they cant get a mortgage because of x y or z.
Why Dave & why the posts?
It was the first name that came to mind – “my mate Dave”, “Dave down the pub” it has a good ring to it.
But there is more to it than the name.
Speaking to people over the years and it is apparent that there is a lot of misinformation out there. Most of the time it comes from people who have no idea or have a very limited bit of knowledge yet talk with far too much confidence for their knowledge. There is a great phrase “you don’t know what you don’t know” and I think that is really important. It is something I will come back to later on.
More worrying though is that occasionally it comes from people who should know better. People who work in finance can appear knowledgeable as they may know more than the average person. But also we have come across people who have been told by other mortgage brokers that they can not get a mortgage – only for us to then be able to get a mortgage.
There are times we have been able to place the case exactly as it is. But there are other times where we may need to make changes in order to make it fit. That might be a larger deposit, it might be a longer term, it might be a combination of things. But ultimately we have been able to get the people a mortgage after they had previously been told it was not possible regardless of the source.
How can we help?
It was on the back of one of these conversations where I started to change how I worded things. Going back to what I said earlier about not knowing what you do not know I changed how I tell people we can not help.
If we can not get a mortgage, we now say something along the lines of “This is not something I think we can help with.” I think this is important as it means we can not help. Which is very different to saying something can not be done. If I think there might be a solution out there, I tell people to try other brokers and then come back and tell us what they did – every day is a school day!
However, it is rare that happens. Because we actively look for those weird and wonderful or complex cases we tend to find we are better placed than most brokers to get something over the line. We love something a bit different to get our teeth into. It makes the day a little more entertaining.
You can see some of our Success Stories here.
The end of Dave!
In essence, all we are saying is to get a second or third opinion. Dont believe everything you hear online or what your mate or some random (whatever their name) says. Dont give up because someone who did not know how to do it said it cant be done.
With access to over 80 lenders, getting on for 15 years experience as a broker (plus more working for banks). We would love to be the first broker you try, but if we are your second (or third) opinion, thats fine too.
Lets get rid of the negativity and say good bye to the Daves.