Hi MN,
Also posted in Money Matters but thought might get more traffic here.
I wondered if anyone has any advice on getting a first time mortgage whilst on maternity leave? DH and I are currently saving manically for a deposit, and should have enough by the end of the year, hoping to buy first couple of months of 2021. We’re also TTC, so there’s a chance if that goes quickly (not looking amazingly likely right now, 5 months already including one early MC) so we might be trying to buy whilst I’m on maternity leave, or at least pregnant. We don’t want to put off TTC any longer, especially as who knows how long that’ll take, and even if I fell pregnant next month we’d still be able to save what we need.
We’d want to borrow less than the top end the mortgage calculators suggest we could get, and I’ve tried doing a calculator including a dependent child, and a projection of what I would potentially earning working part time/paying childminder, and we still fall into the right affordability bracket - though I probably wouldn’t say I was going part time! - but not sure how they consider you on maternity? I’ve seen somewhere that they use half your normal salary for that year? My maternity pay will probably only be SMP, but we can cover all outgoings with DH salary.
Does anyone have any wisdom? Thanks 