We’ve all been there, we’ve stayed with our parents, and then we’ve moved out. We’ve lived with friends and rented apartments. But did you actually acknowledge how much you are paying your landlord each month for the house you are living in?
If you’ve done that, you are familiar with a headache that followed. If not, please take a seat because you might get a little dizzy at first. The truth is that you pay a large amount of money each month to somebody who simply allows you to live in their house, with few guarantees that in 2-3 years you will still be in the same place or paying the same amount of money. What you get is exactly what you pay for – you have a place to live for a while, until you need to move again, luggage, cat, and all.
Even if you think you can never buy your own house or not anytime soon anyway, the good news is that you actually can and that it is a lot easier than you may have thought. Unless you inherit some money or have any life-long savings that are worth breaking into, the way to buy your first house is with the help of a mortgage. The first step is trying an online mortgage provider. This will save you time and money you would usually use by meeting with a real estate broker. It’s faster and cheaper.
To apply for your first mortgage you will need to have a deposit, so do your math to check if you can actually afford one. Find the right property for you and make sure that you have a good credit score, which proves you are trustworthy with paying up your credit. You will also have to be in permanent full-time employment, which is mandatory for the process.
If you only have a small amount of money available, then your mortgage will have to cover more of the property’s price. For example, if you have a deposit worth 15,000 Pounds and you are looking to buy a house that costs 150,000 Pounds, you can only cover 10% of the cost. The remaining 135,000 Pounds must be covered by your mortgage, which means its loan to value (LTV) is 90% of the purchase price.
If you’re a first-time buyer, you can get an LTV of up to 95% for some mortgages. In addition to that, there are some offers available that require no deposit at all. For that, you will need a guarantor mortgage, for which they require a member of your family or a friend to be named on your mortgage so they can cover your repayments if you can’t do that or you missed them.
Another way to get a mortgage if you have a small deposit is with a government scheme called Help to Buy. You will get equity loans, meaning that they will lend you money which you can use for your deposit and then repay them later. They cover up to 20% of the purchase price, which is interest-free for five years. Keep in mind you still need to save a 5% deposit yourself.
If you’re looking to buy a new home, freshly built, you’re in luck, because some property developers will lend you money if you purchase an apartment or house from them. The amount they give you can even be enough for your mortgage deposit. In the short term, this is a great deal, but don’t forget that aside from repaying your mortgage, you will also have to pay their loan back, so keep this in consideration when you decide to go with this option.
You’re probably excited already, making plans, and trying to decide where to move, and then you realize that you actually like the council house that you live in. If that is the case, then you can actually own it now, if you’ve lived there for more than 3 years, using the Right to Buy scheme. It’s a government scheme which you can use to save up to 30% of the price and in some cases, you can use this amount for your deposit, if you have a permissive mortgage lender.
Whatever you choose, think it through and always know you have options to get the house of your dreams.
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