What Mortgage Can You Afford?

BlogAuthor: Tom Kirk
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Mortgages can be tricky to navigate - but we're on hand with advice on how to obtain yours.

When you’re buying a house, working out what you can afford is an essential first step. That means looking at your finances, including your monthly income and outgoings, to work out how much you could afford to spend on a mortgage. This needs to be a realistic calculation, which looks at affordability for the long term, not just at the outset of the mortgage.

How do mortgage lenders calculate affordability?

Affordability is now the key consideration for mortgage lenders when they are deciding how much you can borrow. In the past, lenders simply multiplied your income by an agreed factor to calculate how much you could borrow. But since the Mortgage Market Review in 2014, they now need to consider how your income compares to your outgoings so they can arrive at a much more realistic affordability calculation.

This means that all mortgage lenders calculate affordability in slightly different ways, so it’s worth contacting as many as possible to see which ones offer the best deal for you.

Gather essential financial information

Before you approach potential mortgage lenders, it’s worth listing your current monthly outgoings, and calculating your combined household income, as this is the vital information that any lender will need in order to work out what mortgage you can afford.

Get some professional guidance

Because of the different approaches taken by different lenders, it helps to have some professional advice and support. The professionally qualified mortgage advisers at Preston Baker Financial Services can guide you every step of the way when you’re buying a property.

They’ll start by listening to your circumstances and getting as much information as possible about your income and outgoings. Then they’ll use their knowledge of the mortgage market and mortgage rates to recommend mortgage lenders and products that best suit your situation. These include not only lenders from our comprehensive panel of advisers including those that view your particular circumstances favourably.

To find out what mortgage you can get, book a free appointment with one of Preston Baker Financial Services professional mortgage advisers.

Disclaimer

YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE.

We will charge a broker fee of between £199 and £399, payable on application. The amount we will charge is dependent on the amount of research and administration that is required.

The guidance and/or advice contained within this website is subject to the UK regulatory regime and is therefore primarily targeted at consumers based in the UK.